


I Can't Make Love In My Grave

by mystic_hyacinth



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Divorce, Ghost!AU, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, lots of music references, music references, sorta - Freeform, the one where warren is a leather clad poltergeist and kurt is a music nerd with too much free time, this is a songfic, this took me long enough
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-13 18:58:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7982593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystic_hyacinth/pseuds/mystic_hyacinth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt is only sure of a select few things: his faith, why his parents divorced, his attachment to records and books he has and that when one moves into a house that's been abandoned for more than thirty years, one should expect oddities.</p><p> This may include the remnants of its past occupants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Tomb and The Time Capsule

**Author's Note:**

> Holy hell I've been meaning to do this for some time now, I love doing fics with these two - series especially. Please keep in mind I love doing exposition so this may kick off a little slow. Also, this fic contains tons of music references, and I'll try to post the link to the song or album that is mentioned.
> 
> Thank you and enjoy!
> 
>  
> 
> Title: Mother, Mother - Ghosting
> 
> ((Song Used: Birds of Tokyo - Boy))  
> Arsch - Ass/asshole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt tries to spend a day outside of the house to calm his mind, and when prayers don’t do the job, milky tea and Woodkid just may.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you thank you! please don’t forget to leave comments and critiques and please let me know if I’m going too fast or too slow or if there’s something else you noticed in the story that i made a mistake on! There’s more music, and I’d like to give a thank you to @kodi-smit-mcphee who is a total doll and again to @ein-teufel-im-engelskreis who’s a lovely bird and a babe if there ever was one

 

 The one thing I think I miss the most about home is the noise.

Munich was loud and didn’t care about being so. There were always voices or music or sirens somewhere near our house, even if we lived a good ways’ outside the city - it wasn’t even that I didn’t take part of any of the rushing life around me, but the noise was so ambient and so fixed into the place that now that it’s gone it's almost as if the world is too quiet.

 Then again, when you begin to loathe someone you once loved, the idea of ambience and familiarity is shot straight to hell and the only thing you want to do is scream at them until your throat is raw, and then cry until your eyes are dry and puffy and then remove yourself from their presence  as quickly as possible.  My mum and dad did all three of those things, and got to the point where they’d stopped pretending to like each other for my sake. I don’t really remember when they stopped trying to hide it from me, I don’t think I was was much older than fourteen when we were in the car and some comment my dad would make about how stressful work was would set my mum right off, and they’d go on arguing until they’d forgotten where were supposed to go and that only made them angrier. The sounds of industrial rock were drowned out by words that I hoped they didn’t mean, and the orchestra of ancient church bells was silenced by the forceful slamming of divorce papers down on the kitchen table.

 My Mum gave me one-way plane tickets for my birthday for a nine-hour long flight to New York. My Dad bought me a rosary, he always did since I received Confirmation; not that  him or my mum were particularly religious, but I think he noticed my fixation with them or how I always had one on me. I left the first one he gave me when I turned twelve , I left it in our old house so he could have it, and I took the other five.

 Mum didn’t say anything, she didn’t even kiss him goodbye at the terminal, I wanted to hug him, tell him I’m sorry just to hear him say it wasn’t my fault. I knew that, I just wished it was so he wouldn’t have to blame himself for losing us. I’m not sure how I didn’t cry on the whole flight, and even if Mum tried to talk to me, it seemed like her voice was still back in Munich and disappearing mile by mile as the seconds went by.

We got to the house at about eleven today  and it was pouring for half of it. When it wasn’t, the rain gave way to this sort of unnerving quiet that I still hate. There was only the sound of dogs barking, birds and rustling of summer leaves accompanied and the occasional rumble of a car as it went by our house. Mum was busy the whole day, and so that left me with a ton of time to unpack and make sure she didn’t think I was taking this moving ordeal to heavily.

 I’m pretty sure I did better on the former than on the latter of those two.

 The house has character, if anything. An old Victorian with three stories and a cellar that we've been told is structurally unsound and possibly harboring a family of raccoons. The floors creak and groan like old houses do, the pipes whine whenever you turn the faucet, and the sound of the air conditioning turning on might as well be the sound that greets you at the Gates of Hell.

 It’s funny though, that’s what Mum called the door to her and Dad’s bedroom before he started sleeping downstairs. 

 The walls that don’t have peeling drywall have wallpaper that looks to be at least thirty years out-of-date and when I opened the closet in the hallway I was greeted by a flurry of moths that swarmed out at me. When Mum came upstairs and saw me on the floor and looking like I’d seen a ghost - I told her don’t open any of the closets, and she only smiled and kissed my forehead. 

She knows I’m trying and I’m doing a horrible job, but I’m not sure if she wants to say anything to comfort me. Besides, the man she left isn’t _her_ father, and she doesn’t have any love left in her for him, so what does it matter?

No, that sounds selfish. Mum isn’t selfish, and she’s starting to sign her name as Raven Darkholme instead of Raven Darkholme-Wagner on the papers that are going to tie us to this house. It’s like I’m looking at a stranger, but it shouldn’t phase me, I’ve never seen those two in love for years- if anything, this is who’s she’s been since the screaming began. 

After the incident with the moths and a rather chilling encounter where I swore I could hear the scritch-scratching of raccoon’s feet inside the walls, I’d wanted to call my Dad. Ask him if the house was still empty without us, maybe he’d got a cat to keep him company. He’d loved cats and had a ton of them growing up, but Mum was deathly allergic to them, and so he settled without. I had asked him before it was funny he didn’t have a cat, but loved them enough to still marry a woman who spoke mostly in purrs and hisses - and he had laughed (this was also before the screaming started). 

“She’s not a cat, she’s a rare beauty.” he always spoke about Mum like that, like some goddess or queen or Amazonian warrior who had captured him and intended to kill him unless he devoted his life to her, and god would he do it _willingly_.

“Cats can be rare beauties, at least the endangered ones.”

He laughed again, he had a deep laugh. The type that fills a room and makes you just happy and comforted  being in his presence, even if he looked so intense and somber, he had one of the most pleasant laughs ever. If I could call him, I would - but the house wouldn’t have the Wi-Fi set up for another few days, and God knows how long it would be until I had a working phone in America. I said a prayer for him, and I went on unpacking.

 The clothes were left in their boxes, as I wasn’t even going to dare opening the closet in my room. There was a massive crack that led from the headboard of my bed to halfway across the ceiling, it was bigger than the one in Munich, and a much darker shade of blue. I wonder if Mum knew that when she was looking at the house back home, she wanted the biggest house with closet full  of moths, the creakiest floors and the bluest room for me.  I shook my head, the house could’ve been an iron cage out in the middle of some wasteland, and she’d still love it because it was far away from Azazel Wagner.

Unpacking my room took all of two hours, I lay all the rosaries out on my dresser by size. This year's’ rosary was the smallest one, and the one I’d gotten last year was the biggest.  This one was white, and the beads were small painted stones that looked especially pretty when you put them against a light.

  I sighed, wrapping it around my wrist and kissing the little metal cross. The posters even looked out-of-place, and the books were stacked against the wall alphabetically, but everything just looked so strange. Even the Miss Construction poster seemed to be glowering at me like the Mona Lisa.

  I shut the door and went back to exploring.

  The house had in total ten rooms if you counted the cellar and the attic. The furniture was either unpacked or had its pieces laid out waiting to be assembled, and I’d only been up in the attic because Mum insisted there could be some trinkets or pieces up there we could use - instead making the house completely modern we could “restore it’s original grandeur” at least somewhat.

 No, it’s not like the house was in bad enough shape that it should be condemned - but it’s grandeur days are long since dead. But either way, if it kept her happy and distracted, I would climb into a thousand attics.

  The attic was full of vintage clutter, throw pillows and boxes and shelves stocked with so much stuff you would think this were like a tomb dedicated to some Eighties deity. Boxes stacked halfway to the ceiling and the dust nearly choking the air. Cobwebs accented the place and the patter of raccoon feet seemed to silence up here. There was even more quiet, and now, since the place looked like the aforementioned tomb - it was almost chilling.

  I tried to keep the moving around of objects to a minimal, unless I wanted a lungful of dust inside of me, but the boxes that were easiest to get sat atop a loveseat that had probably been black at some point, but was now a rather sickening shade of brown with stains accenting it. I would just take the three of them and if there was nothing useful, bring them back.

  I tossed a few throw pillows down the ladder too, those really nice handmade ones that grandmother’s make for their children after they move out with English sayings like: “Sweeter things happen here” with a little cupcake on the bottom, and “If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat.” (my English isn’t as good as Mum’s, but definitely not at horrible as dad’s. I  still can hold polite conversation without much trouble.).

   brought down the boxes and shut up the attic. 

  I set the trio of boxes down on the living room floor and went to work opening them. The boxes didn’t open to reveal moths or angry raccoons, but instead - it was nearly like a time capsule.

  Bands I’m sure Mum and Dad knew about - some German, English  and American sat with their names splashed across the covers of record sleeves. There was Die Krupps, Running Wild and Grave Digger sitting alongside Sex Pistols, The Damned and Bad Religion.There were dozens of them, organized not alphabetically or even by color (most of them were black to begin with), but by year if the copyright dates on the back tell anything. It didn’t make sense, these would be worth thousands now, and even then, they weren’t meant to be stored in some dusty box, they were meant to be hanged, proudly on a mantle and bragged about whenever the owner got the chance. But they were just here, just forgotten.

  I’m not partial to metal or industrial or even punk, but it seemed that if these things were supposed to be resting in the Attic Tomb, they had been thrown in a shallow grave and not given a proper burial. I placed the two boxes by the stairs, later on - I’d do them justice. I only own a few records, Justice and Mother, Mother being the ones I’ve played the most - it’s usually the foreign ones that get such an honor.  

  The last box wasn’t filled with records or moths or raccoons, when opened it smelled like old clothes.

  Old _leather_.

  The stuff was studded, adorned with pins and spikes and the black wasn't like the loveseat stains. It was worn but it was still so striking and eye catching. The scratches and patches made it look like it was well loved in its halcyon days, and worn from nights I’m guessing were spent at underground shows and smoking weed behind dumpsters. I hold up one of the jackets, there was to be at least two more in there, along with a few pairs of some of the most uncomfortable looking leather pants ever (are leather pants even _supposed_ to be comfortable?).

  The jacket is a size or two too big, and the sleeves come below my fists, but it feels strangely warm - like someone had just put it away the night before after some late-night jaunt through the grimy underbelly of the city

 “Kurt, didn’t think you’d start your rebellious teen phase so suddenly.” Mum said as she came through the door, her voice was light, a playful purr, Dad would’ve loved it. I’m a little shocked and I want to take the jacket off, but she’s already looking through the boxes.

  “Adorned Brood and the Clash? Shit, Kurt - you’re scaring me, I thought you were into that deeply-philosophical dream pop stuff.”

  I blush a little and shake my head, “I just found it, there’s a whole load of it in the attic, all Eighties junk.”

  Her eyebrow arches, “Even coke?”

  I snicker, “I’m not sure, you did say my teen rebellion just started, should I really be telling you about the coke already?”

  She laughs and gets up from her spot looking through the records at the bottom of the stairs, “You think I could use my record player for these?” I ask, I wasn’t planning to, but she shrugs.

  “You can try.” she kisses my forehead and I smile, “Dinner?” I ask.

   “Only if you cook it.” she collapses on the couch, and I roll my eyes. She’s tired, but her hair is still golden and her face doesn’t seem to age.

  “How was the manager?”

  “An _Arsch_.” she mutters, “But the facility is nice, I won’t complain.” I hum and go into the kitchen. Mum always loves my dumplings, so I get to work on making them.

 Dinner went smoothly, Mum spending most of it talking about how Americans have an abbreviation for everything to the point where they might as well be speaking in code and how she couldn’t shake the feeling the manager was staring down her chest the whole interview (I’m not sure if I like the irony about it, Mum’s a plastic surgeon, maybe the manager was evaluating her?) . “At least you get to keep people young forever?”

  She shook her head, “Until their tits begin to deflate when they’re sixty. I don’t stop aging, I just hold it off for a little bit.”

 Mum stayed downstairs to read over some paperwork after I’d cleaned up the kitchen, and I went back upstairs to organize the records. I tried to keep them in order, from 1978 to 1983 and tape them to the walls, with _Flogging a Dead Horse_ pinned next to the cover poster of _‘the Golden Age’._

 Time periods have a way of looking completely fine by themselves, but when they’re combined with different ones they look either absurd and strange or beautiful and complex. I think this compilation of covers and books and posters is definitely absurd.

* * *

 

 I shower and by ten I’m in bed without much to do but read and play one of the records, I don’t touch any of the ones on the walls, and just go for the ones that are by the stack of books on the floor.

 I even put the leather jacket back on, some part of me hoping it’ll fit better the more I wear it. My old silver record player that Peter gave me three years ago when I started listening to French electronic music and sought after vinyls like I they put air in my lungs. Birds of Tokyo plays as the record spins lazily.

_“My Father was a giant_

_in his arms I could leave the world behind._

_My mother held a voice of reassurance,_

_That everything was fine._

_My memory's a vault t plays against me; selection is the game._

_It's been so long since I remember days_

_When the sun would never fade.._ ”

It drowns out the quiet for a little bit and my finger presses to the white rosary on my wrist and for a moment everything seems familiar. Even surrounded by little black squares and wearing clothes that aren’t mine, things seem more focused for just a little while before I fall asleep.  


	2. The Intruder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt is confronted and accused of stealing and is later subject to an avalanche of ceramics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the positive feedback on the first chapter, you all are the reason I do this, the first couple chapters will be short but i'm a slut for exposition and buildup, especially in ghost stories. 
> 
> Enjoy <3

 The day after the night of the time capsule and the tomb, Mum told me before she left for work early that there should be some people coming by to install the Wifi.  I tried to hide my excitement. As much as I loved the books and records, Manchester was still new to me, and I didn’t want to venture out too soon. I needed a better distraction.

 As she said, the men did come by to install the router, and within an hour they were gone. My laptop had gone untouched in my suitcase, but I tore it out of it pocket on the inside and flipped it open. 

There were already a few emails from Dad, and I couldn’t help the smile that came to my face.

_ ‘I miss you, how was your flight?’ _

_ ‘Don’t forget to send me pictures of the house!!’ _

_ ‘How is your mother?” _

Of course,  _ Gott _ , dad could be such a Mum sometimes. 

I checked the clock on my phone, if it was only a little after twelve here, it would be a little after six at home, Dad would still be awake.  _ All’s fine. House is nice, how’s the cat?’ _

Besides that, there were a few emails from Peter too, some pictures from some show he’d gone to the night I left.  _ Wish you were here, the band nearly made me cum right in my pants.’ _

My face recoiled in disgust but there was a bit of a laugh there, because of course peter would say that. ‘ _ Was it that all-girl indie band from Romania?’ _

The reply was instant:   _ ‘Only one of them is a girl, the rest just look like girls. But yeah, there was thunderous applause and thunderous orgasms. How is America?’ _

_ “If america is just a big house with a big lawn filled with records and leather, then i think i like it.’ _

_  ‘leather? Very nice xx.’ _

_ ‘Nonono, like leather jackets and records. There’s boxes full of them.’ _

_ ‘Invite me over, will you? I have a feeling my dad isn’t too fond of my sneaking about, i even told him i was going to church and it didn't work.’ _

_ ‘Peter, i’m sure if you went to church you would burn as soon as you stepped into the vestibule.’ _

_ ‘  i t B U R N S .’ _

_ ‘Stop it peter, go make amends with your dad.” _

_ “Come back home.” _

_ “I would, but the Woman of the House seems set on becoming an American, it's not like i had any say in the matter.” _

The reply takes a few minutes this time, I even if i know i haven’t said anything too hurtful I can’t help but feel Peter is somehow upset. As soon as i go type something else, he responds:

_ ‘It’s awful  you’re in the middle of this, it's not your fault.’ _

_ ‘It’s fine, i’ll be fine, don’t worry, peter, please don’t worry.' _

_ ‘Lol. how the tables have turned, its usually you worrying.' _

_ ‘I worry about everything, peter. It’s how i survive.’ _

 Peter replies with a smile, and then there’s nothing. Dad still hasn’t replied, and I idle around on my laptop, playing music and reading over the PDF of some graphic novel Peter sent me. I don’t know, if i feel a disconnect to the world around me, there’s Peter - he’s my bridge, he shows me graphic novels about gods or his guilty pleasure KDramas and in turn I give him progressive rock bands from Sweden and synthpop from Scotland. If the air in my house was too thick I would always be welcome at his.  When the world becomes a mess and I feel separated, and then there’s Peter that draws me in and the world becomes colorful again.

 Dad still hasn’t messaged me back, but I hope he sees my reply. I lean further into the leather jacket, even if it’s hard to type with it on, I don’t mind.

 I read until I get to the point where I have to keep going back to reread what I’ve already read three times, and I head upstairs for a shower and clean clothes, I don’t like spending all day in clothes I slept in. As I walk up the stairs, there’s a shuffling sound from inside the bathroom.

I stop moving, thinking it’s simply the creaking of the stairs echoing, but then there’s the noise again, like feet. And again - definitely feet, like heavy boots against the tile floor, I crouch downward.

An intruder? _Already?_

I hear a hissed curse and the clink and shattering of something hitting the floor. I try to creep back downstairs but the door opens and I duck so that whoever’s there can’t see me from the bannister. If I run they’ll hear me coming. Call the police? I’ll be dead before they get there. Hide? they'd hear me moving around the house. I’m sure they could’ve heard the music from downstairs, they would’ve known someone else was home - maybe they were waiting for me to come upstairs and kill me?

The door opens and  I get a glimpse of a figure, it glances up and down the hall and curses again before turning back into the bathroom.

Great, I could run. I could tell the neighbors, maybe? If I were just quiet, just very, very quiet - 

“That’s mine, asshole.” there’s a gruff voice behind me, and then a feel something violently pulling me backward, and I cling to the railing of the stairs, knowing that if I lose my balance I’m going down the hardwood stairs - head first.

I hold tight against it, trying to escape the grip of the person but they’ve got me held tight and with no intention to let go. “Get off! Get off me!” I yell, the chuckle I get is amused, and I'm turned around.

The face that meets mine is blurred but I catch enough - it’s pale and tousled blonde curls that seem to be glinting in the afternoon sun. Even if he’s standing a step or so below me he’s still taller, and there’s something - somethings white emerging from behind his back that I can barely see because  _ what’s going on, who is this, who is he, who is in my house - what is this, what is this, what is this? _

 His jaw is set there’s anger in his eyes that flares with his every breaths as he uses my shock to nearly rip the jacket from my back and pull it it onto himself. 

“If you touch my stuff again I will fucking kill you.” Before I can protest and claw at him, he’s gone. 

Everything happens quicker now, I run to the bathroom and fling open the door.  _ “Where are you?! Where are you?!"  _ I scream, there’s no reply, but there’s a small pile of shattered glass on the floor surrounded by a puddle of black.

The whole place reeks of nail polish and I have to open the window before I can properly clean it up.

 So the intruder only wanted to paint their nails, and then take my jacket, that was it. I’m trembling and shaking as I pick up the shards, and try to wipe up the mess, those curls - that face. He was so _ angry, _ and I hadn’t done anything. I’d just worn a jacket and he'd broken into my house. Did he steal that nail polish from Mum? How’d he even know where it was unless he’d been stalking us since we got here?

 I didn’t want to stay in the bathroom, lest he come back, so showering was out of the question. The least I could do was change.

 When my hands were covered in black but thankfully uncut by the glass I went to my room, and the records were all missing.

Not missing, really, they were just back in the box.

**_Back in the box without me putting them there._ **

Mum wouldn’t have moved them, she didn’t seem to mind me putting them up last night and I’d left them just hanging this morning. All the breath left my lungs at once and I leaned against wall for support, I let everything go quiet again - despite me not wanting it to, I listened for feet, human or raccoon. Listened for a voice or for _anything_.

_ Nothing, nothing, nothing. _

I went towards the records,  neatly organized - this time by artist. Maybe they were a runaway and had used this place to hide out in before we moved, and were simply angry about their stuff being raided, but when I went to touch the records, they were warm, too warm, warm like the jacket and I pulled back my hand like I’d been burned.

 Looking around, there was no one. Listening, there was nothing. The house was big and empty and quiet as it should be, but I didn’t want to stay inside, I changed, quickly as possible but constantly looking towards the door. Expecting the intruder to fling it open at any moment and scream at me again, and in four minutes, I was outside on the porch swing with laptop on the dreary June afternoon.

 My heartbeat still pounded in my ears, and my knees knocked so badly I had to steady the laptop with my hands just to keep it from falling. Dad had replied:

_ “Don’t have a cat just yet, though Raven insists I might as well have a tail and  little horns.” _ I smiled and didn’t look back at the door or the house, and even as the light showers began to fall, I didn’t go inside.

 

* * *

 “What’s the matter, Kurt? You’re shaking.” she asked me during dinner, I shook my head, refusing to look up at her. What was I supposed to say? ‘ _ Someone broke in my room stole my jacket, and spilled nail polish all over the bathroom floor’? _ Of course, I was a terrible liar, but the truth wasn’t too convincing.

 “Nothing’s the matter.”

 “Where’s your jacket?”

“It got hot in here.”   


 “That’s why you were outside?”

 My other hand pinched at the little cross on the rosary under the table.  _ No, I want to tell her. I don’t want to stay here, someone broke in, I don’t know if they were trying to prank me but they didn’t hurt me, I don’t know, I’m scared. I’m sorry that I had to ruin this for you.  _ But I don’t say anything, just nod to her and she looks down. She knows something’s wrong, but she hopes that I’ll just come clean on my own, because that’s what I do. I lie awfully and I’m ridden with permanent guilt. 

 “I talked to Dad today.” she looks up almost as if she wants to cut out my vocal chords for even talking about him.

 “Yeah?” she asks.

 “Yeah, he said he misses me, he misses you too.”

 “Didn’t miss me when he was off with that slut.”

_  Don’t call her that.  _ I want to say, but I pretend to ignore her. “I told him everything was fine, you went back to work - “

 “Tell him not to ask about me again.”  

 “I can’t tell him that.” 

 “He listens to you, if anything.” She shakes her head, “Let’s not talk about him any more, yeah? I don’t want to hear it.” her voice is sharp and I’m silent, and dinner goes on without farther conversation.

 Afterwards, Mum cleans up and I offer to make her tea (she always likes for me to slip a little wine into it). I turn the kettle on and wait the few minutes until it shrieks,  but when I open the cabinet the few mugs and teacups come tumbling outwards, as if opening the door pushed them forward, and I barely manage to jump out the way before they shatter onto the floor. There’s a clang as the kettle tips over and the boiling water flows over the counter and just barely misses my feet and I can’t hold in the scream. 

“Kurt?!” Mum yells  and the shock has me stumbling backwards onto my ass on the floor, Mum storms and I war her to watch her step admits the mess of matted porcelain and hot water.

 “What happened?”

 “I don’t know, I - I opened the cupboard and I - I don’t know!” I sound stupid, but this is me telling the truth. I always sound stupid when I tell the truth, I sound like a damn five year old, and when I lie, I sound like a criminal. There’s no hope for me, nor is there any rest.

Mum offers to help me up, but I shy away from her hand, “Come on, I’ll clean this up. Did you get cut?” I shake my head, “No, no. I’m fine. I’m fine, don’t worry.”

That’s my biggest lie, it always has been, but it’s been the only one I can tell smoothly.

“Go upstairs.” she says, her words should sound comforting, but it sound like she’s throwing me to a hungry pack of wolves.

I go to my room. The records are gone, and the box of leathers, too. My room is still is its’ blazing shade of blue, in contrast to the worn shades and wallpapers of the rest of the house and I collapse on my bed next to my laptop. I don’t want to turn off the light, I want to see everything. Maybe the Intruder got what he wanted, and is going to leave us alone. 

I look over at the clock, it’s after eight here here, after two in Munich. Peter probably would be up, Dad probably not.

I wanted to go home more than anything, too many things that were too far away and too many things that were unfamiliar, and it bothered me. But Mum wanted this, she needed happiness. After all the scandal, the trying to repair a shattered marriage and having it fail spectacularly, and the sex and the recently pregnant mistress, Mum needed happiness, she needed solace.

I knew I looked like my Dad, I don’t know if that made her upset just to look at me. I would’ve stayed with him if it made her hurt.

No, no. Dad would have a baby to look after soon, he didn’t need me complicating things.

I didn’t feel like putting on the record player, so I fell asleep to the steady buzzing and whir of the fan until Mum came in.

“You alright?” my response was a sleepy ‘yes’.

“ _Gutt_.” she looks around the room, and notices the empty space. “What happened to your records?”

“I took them down, decided I wasn’t really into them all that much.” she chuckles, “Teenage rebellion is officially over?”

“Wasn’t even aware it started.” I smile back, she smirks and her eyes linger on me for a bit, tired and half-wrapped in blankets. “Just keep it clean, okay?”

I nod and she goes to turn off the light before I stop her, “Leave it on, please?”

She’s hesitant as she eases her hand from the switch, she bids me goodnight and shuts the door. 

I know that look, she’s worrying. She shouldn’t have to worry, I’m seventeen, I _ ’m fine. I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine. _

The light clicks off, and there’s a chuckle, and I swear I see someone standing by the door. “Keep the room nice, Kurt. Do what Mommy tells you, and stop stealing my shit.”

When the light switches back on the room is freezing and I huddle under my blankets. The voice, that damn _ voice _ \- he never left, he didn’t leave, he was there all day. He was _waiting_ for me.

  
I stayed up the whole night, only leaving to check on Mum and make sure she was alright. 


	3. More Shattered Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt tries to spend a day outside of the house to calm his mind, and when prayers don’t do the job, milky tea and Woodkid just may.

Two days went by, I didn’t see the Intruder at all; not when I was showering and definitely not creeping about in the hallways upstairs. I hadn’t went back to the attic to retrieve the records or anything else. Mum had said she liked the throw pillows, and that was enough.

Was he a man? No, couldn’t be - he didn’t look that old, what little I saw of him. His curls made him look younger, and though he had a strong jaw, his cheeks looked soft and his lips were extremely pink.

Wait, no - the best image I’d gotten of him was in the middle of a fight on the staircase, I could’ve just been seeing pieces and fragments of him - and in the midst of the fray my fear-addled brain has constructed a half-true photo of him to etch into my memory.

Then there was the light coming from his back, was it light? It wasn’t that sunny that day to have an ungodly amount of light bursting from behind someones back like that. There were curls and pink lips and soft cheeks that probably weren’t that soft. I ran it over, thinking and thinking and trying not to seem like I was obsessing over some half-memory in front of Mum, she didn’t need to worry for me. Not after the incident with the tea, the cups seem to just have surged forward, and the kettle just tipped over without any warning.

All of it, the whole night - including when he came back and talked to me, his voice wasn’t sinister or even ominous, just playful. Like it was all some big prank and he was enjoying the torture the was giving me.

Peter had sent me the next volume of the graphic novel with the gods, and it did little to comfort me. Dad hadn’t spoken to me either, but I figured he must’ve just been busy from work.

I went out today, figuring it was about time I did something besides sulk and live in fear. I had two rosaries wrapped around each wrist and Digitalism tee I’d got from when me and Peter rode six hours to see them in Berlin (three thousand people and were probably the only ones not high). When I stepped out of the house into the steamy air, it was like breathing in an entirely different world.

The street we lived on was called Howard and I tried to remember our driving in to it from town. Most of the streets looked the same, big old houses with short driveways. Though, unlike hours, they were closer together whereas we had a huge lawn and space all to ourselves. There was a Church a few streets over, but it’s Wednesday and the lot isn’t packed. It’s a nice church, too - Methodist.

When I go to take a glance inside, the place smells of vanilla and old books - and the light that pouring in from the high stained-glass is drenching the white walls in a kaleidoscope of color. It’s quiet and the organ above my head is bright and golden.

Like that boy’s curls.

I hiss for my thoughts to shut up as I continue walking through, the churches in Munich are more grand, they’re old - and they all have reputations, but this one - it’s simple and pristine and I still say the sign of the cross when I come in like any other house of God. There’s comfort here, respite and peace and I kneel down in one of the pews.

I’m praying the rosary, and time seems to mesh together into something I don’t understand. I’ve always felt this way when God is close, the world falls away and all you feel is love.

Not now, there’s confusion laced in the Mysteries, fear - dogged hope that New York will be good to us. That Dad will be able to take care of his baby and Mum will have found herself some solace. I pray for the creaky doors and rusty pipes. I pray and pray.

“Are you waiting for someone?” a voice calls out to me, and I look up to see a man dressed in black with old-looking glasses. There’s about a dozen people coming out from the doorway behind him, and he blesses them, though his eyes are still on mine.

“Nein,” I say - forgetting to switch back to English. His eyebrow arches and I scramble to my feet and my shirt catches one of the rosary beads. I wait for the people to pass by, some smile, others ignore me entirely.

“No, I wasn’t waiting for anyone. I was just - speaking?”

The man smiles, he looks young, and the light from the stained glass reflects in his tortoise-shell glasses. “Lovely thing to hear, I’m Father McCoy, don’t believe I’ve seen you about?”

“Kurt Wagner, I just moved in a few days ago.” I manage, he has a vice grip on my hand and I have to shake it a little after he lets go, he seems pleasantly surprised.

“Moved from where, if I’m not being rude?”

I shake my head, Americans apologize for everything. “Munich.”

“Beautiful! I’ve seen Frauenkirch, loved it - there was a mission trip a few years ago that took us there.”

I nod and smile, “I live twenty minutes from it.” his eyebrow quirks and it takes me a minute to realize my mistake. I lived twenty minutes from it, I could’ve walked to it if I wanted to.

“Well, I used to.” I’m quick to correct myself, he chuckles and I feel myself blush just a little. Oh Gott, he must think I’m just some homesick child.

“It’s alright, your accent is heavy - you lived there too long and lived here too little, you’ll adjust, yeah?”

I nod again, the man never stops smiling, and his eyes crinkle when he does. “Will I be seeing you on Sunday? Service is at ten”

“Yes, I should be able to make it. I’ll ask my Mum if she wants to come too.” his eyebrow raises and I shrug, “Sorry, just - I’m still a little shaken.”

“No worries, Kurt.” he shakes his head and places a hand on my shoulder, “God will always be there to guide.”

“I know, Father.” I try to smile at him, though I only want to leave in the kindest way possible. “Thanks.”

I show myself out and when the door closes behind me I throw myself down on the stairs and but my head in my folded arms. I lied to myself again, everything is still so unfamiliar. I pray again, asking St. Christopher to give me a home, somewhere. Whether it be here or in Munich. I want a home, I need something to be known and something I can be accustomed to. I don’t want to feel like I’m still stuck out somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic.

I pray and I pray, but I don’t feel close to home. I don’t feel close to anything. I’m in two places and nowhere at all.

I left the Church some time later, the day was still pretty early and Mum wouldn’t be home until six or seven, so I went through Manchester on my own. The air was still thick, but not suffocating, and I tried to remember the street names. For houses that look more or less the same, at least the street names are unique.

There’s Harlow, then Keane, McGaffney and Stratton. Winters and Finnigan. Katherine and Varracks. There’s Peter and there’s music and manga and sneaking out to shows so he won’t have to explain to his Dad. There’s lights and noise, and then there’s my old room (no, not old. It’s my room, it’s been since I was born. It’s my room), with music playing and Peter rambling on Skype about some emo American band breaking up while I’m trying to read Tristimania because I want to learn English and I’m taking notes as I do.

There’s Robinson and Zimmerman and there’s Mum and Dad and they’re laughing and drinking and I’m watching them from the stairs, Dad’s still looking at her as if she’s a radiant supernova, and she’s looking at him like looking away will kill her. There’s screaming and crying and I’m trying to drown it out, but my tears are louder than the music or their voices and I want to hold us together, but the screaming continues.

There’s a huge house that isn’t mine, and a room that isn’t mine and records and leather jackets that don’t belong to me, and I’m so desperate for Mum to be happy I don’t all her about the Boy On the Stairs, or the one in my room. I try, I try the street names become a string of words I’m so unfamiliar with.

“Hey, buddy. I’m sorry but there’s no loitering allowed. Hey, hey are you alright?”

I don’t realize I’m crying, but I hear a voice, sweet and kind and now undoubtedly concerned and Gott, they’re worrying. I don’t need that, I don’t need them to worry. I tell myself to lie to myself again and there’s a hand on my shoulder.

My vision is blurry, but the girl’s face is pristine. Her cheeks are soft and her skin is tan, and her hair is done in inky black curls that frame her face. Her lips are bright pink and her eyebrows are scrunched together. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing..” I say, my voice is choked. I’m lying again, and I sniff. She doesn’t press me, “Do you want to come inside?”

“It’s fine, i’m fine.” she helps me up anyways and leads me in without my consent.

“Jean! Fix some mint tea, please! Someone needs a shoulder to cry on.”

There’s the overwhelming scent of paper and when my vision finally clears I see that the girl has led me into a bookstore. I wipe at my eyes, it’s small, like I could fit the entire downstairs of my house inside of it (the one in Munich). She leads me behind the counter and into a little backroom where I’m sat down on a huge leather chair next to a table loaded with boxes and books and papers and the hissing hound of a tea kettle somewhere around me.

She hands me a tissue and sits on the table, I try to stop myself from crying in front of her. She only rubs at my back. “Get it out, buddy. It’s okay.”

It’s not. There’s another girl, she’s near the kettle and she knows this. “If you don’t wanna talk about it you don’t have to, Jubes just makes it seem that way.” she says. I look over to her, in the low light of the back room her hair looks like it’s on fire, and her eyes are dangerous.

I don’t speak to her.

“Sorry to bother you.” I say when the Dangerous Girl hands me the tea, I take it and thank her.

The other girl - Jubes, she’s still worrying even if I’ve stopped crying, my heart it still racing, my heads’ a mess and my ears are ringing, but at least my tears have stopped.

“You didn’t have to bring me in.”

“You looked pretty rough, and we haven’t had anyone come in in two hours.” Jubes says, her face is kind. The Dangerous Girl is still looking at me like she intends to eat me alive, my eyes avoid hers.

“I’m Jubilee, by the way.” Jubes smiles, and my eyebrow arches because damn these Americans and their names. “Short for Jubilation.” chimes in the Dangerous Girl, and I nod. “I’m Jean.”

“Kurt.” I say to them, taking a sip of the tea, it’s sweet. Almost sickeningly sweet and I think they take notice when my face scrunches up.

“Jubilee’s recipe, four spoonfuls of sugar.” Jean says, and I glance down at it as if it’s poisoned.

“Four?”

“I normally use six.”

I still drink it regardless, though I apologize to my blood sugar in advance.

“Kurt?” Jubilee asks, I turn towards her. She’s been handing me tissues and running her hand on my back to calm me down while Jean’s moved to the other side of the table, looking through endless stacks of papers and organizing them. I try not to wince at how sickeningly sweet the stuff is.

“Ja?”

“You’re welcome to stay the afternoon, if you want. You have a ride home?”

I shake my head, “No, no! It’s fine, I can walk home - I don’t live far. I’m over on Howard”

Her eyes widen, “That’s a good half hour’s walk from here, are you sure? I wouldn’t mind giving you a ride.” A half-hour? It’d only felt like five minutes walking here, everything was just a blur of sound and color and things I’d tried to forget, I want to tell the two girls they’ve done enough already, but Jubilee seems to be passionate about getting me home. Jean doesn’t looked pleased at all, I don’t think she ever does.

“She means I wouldn’t mind giving you a ride, she doesn’t have a license.”

Jubilee frowns, “I could pass that test if I wanted to.”

“Then pass it without nearly hitting two pedestrians.” I try to hide my smile, Jubilee rolls her eyes and looks back down at me. “Jean can give you a ride, right Jean?”

Jean looks up again, “I don’t like strange men in my car.”

“Scott rides with you all the time.”

“Scott isn’t strange, he’s just an asshole.”

Jubilee’s smile is knowing and Jean looks back to me, “Yeah, sure. I can take you back, but you’re gonna have to wait til closing.”

“You can go now, nobody’s coming in here.” Jubilee pleads.

“I did.” I mutter, Jubilee’s face tells me to keep quiet, and so I do.

“After six, Ororo doesn’t like us abandoning the post early for anything that’s not an emergency.” Jean stands firm, like she’s used to this.

“Ororo isn’t here.”

Jean looks at me, her eyes are sharp and burning and I shift a little in my seat, it’s like she’s been planning to murder me since Jubilee brought me in.

“Can you wait until after six?”

I pause, “My mum won’t know I’m here. She could be worried, I don’t need her to worry, we just got here - “

She pressed a hand to her mouth as if I’d just said something awful about her mother, and Jean looks up from her stacking and organizing, eyes going from cold to something resembling amusement and interest. “You moved into the House on Howard?” Jean asks.

My brows furrow and I look between the two of them, “I guess?”

“No fucking way, you don’t guess. That place has been abandoned since ‘85 and the county wanted it to be condemned and demolished for years. You should’ve seen it when I was younger, place was overgrown with all types of stuff, the porch would creak, there would always be noise coming from inside it, as if someone lived there. Shattering glass and footsteps, and something - like death metal, always death metal at like four in the morning. But you can’t file a noise complaint if no one lives there.”

“So what did they do?”

“What can they do? They thought it was some squatter, but there was no one in the house, it was still abandoned.”

My hands gripped the mug until my knuckles had gone white and I was staring at Jean as if she’d just told me I had a few weeks to live.

“Heard anything suspicious yet?”

“Not really, no. Nothing too bad.” I lied, it was moreso what I’d seen. But i was afraid as to what she’d say.

Jean looks even more amused, like she can see I’m shaken about this but trying to hide it from her sharp eyes.

“Why hadn’t they just torn it down?”

“Don’t know, the neighbors offered to take care of it since the county refused to, figured it was too pretty a house to be knocked down.” Jubilee shrugged, “But there’s still noise, there’s been noise for thirty years.”

“Not now.” I say, “It’s nice and quiet.”

Jean shakes her head, “Of course it is, Vonnegut.” she takes my empty cup, “You wanna buy something while you’re here?”

“I don’t have any money on me.”

“You can help out!” Jubilee offered, her smile returning again. I shook my head, “I couldn’t! You two are being paid, I wouldn’t even know what to do, please you’re too kind, I’m alright. I’ll just walk back home.”

“Please just let him walk back home.” Jean said, exasperated. “Even then, there’s not much to do. You’re still loitering.”

Jubilee frowned, and Jean rolled her eyes like she’d seen this routine twenty times before. “Please, Jean. We can’t send him back onto the streets, all lonely and distraught.” she held tight to my arm and I laughed, hiding my blush. “I’m not a stray dog, Jubilee. I’ll be okay, I promise. You don’t have to feed me and give me a name.”

Jean sighed and gave a muttered approval that I could stay but Jubilee would have to keep an eye on me, which I think was good for her since she kept hovering about while I was trying to organize books near the front of the store. She loved to talk, and laugh - and even if I don’t usually talk much, her chatter was infectious and after a couple hours we were going a hundred miles an hour about God-knows-what. Jean made a habit of not getting involved, instead only to correct Jubilee whenever she were to make a comment about “Great Scott” (as Jubilee dubbed him) or tell her not to mix up the horror novels with the erotica.

For an afternoon, it didn’t end the worst as it could have.

Jean gave me the ride home after seven, and after listening to the two of them get into a bout of conversation for twenty minutes over whether or not Virginia Woolf was indeed bisexual and though she lived in a sexless marriage with her husband Leonard (whom Jubilee called ‘Leo’ as if she knew his personally) in favor of an affair with Vita Sackville-West. I sat, listening and watching as the suburbs passed by in a steady line of big houses and big lawns and the early evening chirping of crickets. They dropped me off at my house, right as Jean was getting a text from Great Scott.

Jubilee hugged me tight as I got out. “Come back, please - you’re really cool, and take these!” she hanged me a tied plastic bag.

“What are they?”

“Open them when you get inside, Vonnegut.” Jean said without looking up from her phone, though i could see the hint of a smile playing at her lips.

I bade them goodnight and thanked them, going upstairs to my house. Supposed to be abandoned, yet loud as if it were full of people. I unlocked the door with shaking hands as if expecting a wall of sound to hit me.

I came in, Mum was on the couch, reading with a glass of wine on the floor next to her. Jean let me call her a few hours ago and I couldn’t tell her I’d had a mental breakdown while wandering the unfamiliar suburbs. More so I was just hiding out at the local bookstore and I’d made friends. I’d hated lying to her, though.

“How was it, your day with your friends?” Mum smiled at me from behind her book. 

 

“They’re nice.” I smiled.

“Girls?”

“Yeah.”

Mum chuckled, “Spending afternoons in bookstores with nice girls, I guess I don’t have to wait for your teen rebellion to happen.” I laughed and she looked up at me.

“You’re alright?”

“I guess.”. She was looking me over, for any hint of doubt or insecurity but I tried to visibly lie to her. I was better than I felt earlier, but now - the house, this little piece of wood in the dirt was almost unnerving. “Has it been quiet in here since you got home?” I asked her.

Her eyebrows quirked, “Yes?” I nodded, she asked if I was hungry and I told her no before heading upstairs.

My room looked the same as I’d left it, thank God, and though I just wanted to throw myself down on the bed, I approached it with slight trepidation as if the Intruder was going to jump out from underneath it.

I sighed, it was the house - moving, everything. It was about nearly two in the morning at home, no one to talk to. Asbjørn’s Pseudo Vision Ch. 2 lay atop the record pile, and I felt the guilt return. Not dizzying and disorienting as this afternoon, but everything just seemed to be pulling at me, and it felt like the walls were being held together by pins waiting to fall and give way at any second.

I tried to remember Jubilee’s kind words, and forget Jean’s story. The house was too big, and I’d been the only one to live in it in thirty years. Like walking into a sacred tomb only to repaint the walls and install ugly furniture.

I said a prayer for those thirty years, and how I’d ended them. For the last residents, as Jean hadn’t even mentioned them, but I doubt she would know what had happened to some people in an old house at least a couple decades before she was even born. I prayed for them, hoping they find rest after all these years and hoping they’d never found out they house had become the stuff of old abandoned legend bordering on haunted-house.

In the middle of the Twenty-Third Psalm is when I heard it. It was a couple of thuds before the sound of glass being shattered against the floor.

“What’re you trying to do, asshole? Croatoan me?” the voice asks, familiar and snappy, i turn to the other side of the bed and he’s standing there. In his leather and his boots with his brows furrowed and lips in a pink pout and those curls spilling everywhere.

“What?”

I don’t know how to respond, he’s snapping at me as if I’ve broken into his house.

Metal -always metal, been abandoned since ‘85.

“Those records?” I say, my voice is crumbling and I must look pathetic. “Are they yours?”

“Well I don’t listen to indie-rock shit you’re into. Of course they’re mine.”

I swallow nervous and unsure. “I’m sorry.” I say, trying not to sound insulated. “Sorry for taking them.”

The Intruder scoffs, “Don’t apologize, just don’t do it again.” I nod, he sits - or rather sprawls out on my bed and his long legs come out to nearly push me off of it. He’s looking around at my room, at the posters on the walls. “That’s what you guys are listening to? Damn. Play me something, you thieving little shit.”

He’s starting to wear on me, “No thank you, I’m sorry again for your records, but you got them back, and you leather jacket, too. You can go.” his eyes narrow, sharp and looking ready to catch fire. “Your mom never told you what the hell it means for you to respect other people their own house?” he snaps, my eyebrows raise incredulously.

“This is my house. Keep your voice down, okay? Just, leave. Please.”

I fill his fist come to wrap around the rosary on my wrist, and he tugs. My first instinct is to pull my arm out of his grip, but I don’t want break it, my eyes are fearful and angry.

“Get off!” I hiss.

“Play me something, just do it.”

“I’ll call the police.”

“And I’ll disappear before they get here.” he almost seems to smile.

“Get off of my rosary.”

He smirks, “What happened to Catholics being giving?”

“I don’t give to people who’re so hellbent on taking things from me.” He’s looking dead at me, and before I know it, he’s on top of of me, pinning me.

“Just play something. One thing and I’ll go. Show me something.” and he pulls off and lets me wake my way to the side of the bed again to sift through the records.

Just one. Just one. But they all seem to come to one big lump of sleeves as I look frantically through.

I pull out one and let it spin, he relaxes. The piano is ambient, and Woodkid’s voice is sort of mumbled amongst the orchestrations and his accent, but the Intruder doesn’t seem to care, and looks almost serene and pleasantly surprised as the song ends.

“Who’s this?” he asks me, cracking an eye open. 

“Woodkid.”

“Foreign?”

“French.” I replied, he hums and settled back into the pillow. I try to nudge him, “No, you had your one song. Go.”

He shakes his head, “Keep going, please?” I sigh, because this is what Jean and Jubilee must feel like but nonetheless I let the record spin from The Golden Age to Run Boy, Run and The Great Escape before he stops reminding me to keep playing it. I lay there with him, letting the music overflow the room. He likes the orchestrations, he tells me. It’s not what he’s used to, it doesn’t rush and charge at him like his music and send him into a haze, it simply holds skin, envelops him and devours him whole. He still calls it overdone bullshit, but it’s at least decent.

By the time Stabat Mater comes down, his eyes widen at the old Catholic sound of hymns and he looks over at the record player. It’s one of the more dramatic ones on the album, and the choir that sings the intro is chilling, and looking towards me, this time he’s listening to the words - I can see his interest as if he’s trying to pick them apart.

“I think that good.” he says at the end of the sound when the last of the weeping violins fades out. I’m almost saddened, but I don’t feel sorry, I try not to, at least.

He gets up off the bed and goes to walk around the room with a mumbled “Thanks.” before just walking out.

I get up, just to follow him, just to see if he was heading downstairs on planning on sneaking back up to the attic. But there’s nothing, he just vanished.

My blood runs cold and I go back to my room, locking the door and shutting the windows and seeing the pile of shattered glass by one of them. One of the shards reads “Fifty Proof: Product of the Soviet Union”

I glanced back the door, there was no Soviet Union. There hadn’t been for years, where’d he gotten this from and why smash it and judging by the Fifty Proof, he must’ve just been good and drunk enough for him to do all that “Play Something” stuff. I took the record off and put it in it;s sleeve. The Intruder was in my bed, probably drunk - he’d pinned me for God’s sake, and I just let him like a fool. I watched the door, I didn’t so much as want to go back in my bed, for fear that he came back. I sat on the floor, leaning against it. Trying not to think.

My house was too old and so was the liquor and the music and the clothes nothing made any sense, and yet it all carried on around me with such drab mundanity.

I fell asleep on the floor that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you thank you! please don’t forget to leave comments and critiques and please let me know if I’m going too fast or too slow or if there’s something else you noticed in the story that i made a mistake on! There’s more music, and I’d like to give a thank you to @kodi-smit-mcphee who is a total doll and again to @ein-teufel-im-engelskreis who’s a lovely bird and a babe if there ever was one


	4. Cutie and the Lizard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raven wears her rubies to Church, Warren doesn’t understand modern technology and Kurt finally gets to speak to his Dad.

 

 The next day was wet, and I even with my uneasiness, I didn’t feel like going through the downpour outside. I went for the bag Jubilee had given me last night and to my surprise were two books, one of them being a collection of Lovecraft’s horror stories, and one the over of it some eldritch horror , the other A Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. I couldn’t help but smile,a s she’d even written one a little sticky note onto of them that she would love if i read them, she’d picked out Lovecraft and Jean the Handmaid's Tale. It was her way of say thank you, I guess. Though I wasn’t sure what for.

The windowsill in my room is big enough to sit in, and without so much as changing my clothes I settle in to read the Mountains of Madness.

 I’m engrossed, it’s horror - of course, but not as overt and vulgar as some of the horror novels I know, and I’ve only read a few. It’s chilling, wonderfully atmospheric, but subtle despite Lovecraft throwing in dozens of adjectives in one sentence simply to describe the overall setting of a dark, icy cave in the Arctic.

“Lovecraft was a hack, don’t read that.” is the voice from a few feet away, I look back over to my bed and the Intruder is sitting down, watching me and leaning back.

“It’s beautifully written.”

“Please, now you sound like a hack.”

 I frown, “Do you have anything better to do than criticize my taste in everything? I don’t pick on you or your leather jackets and Eighties hair, and I’m still not going to hesitate and call the cops if you make me. I know how drunk you were last night.” I don’t know if i’m right, he seems to have a habit of disappearing and reappearing at will.

He lets out a laugh, and I fear he’s still a bit hungover. But his eyes are focused and intent as he stares. “Wasn’t drunk, wish I was.”

“You were drinking vodka from the Soviet Union, is that even safe?”

“You’re German, you have the alcohol tolerance of twenty Soviets.”

I scoff, slamming the book shut. “I’ve never drank.”

“Of course you haven’t.” he rolls his eyes and strolls over to me.   “Seriously, you’re better off with Atwood. Lovecraft was a racist and is so fucking overrated it's a mess, and the Cthulhu Mythos can eat my entire ass.”

_ “Leave it to an American to call something racist.’  _ I glare at him, “The Elder Things will suck you into the void and the Shoggoths will chew you up.”

 He barks a laugh again and sits down across from em in the windowsill, I don’t pull my feet away and I don’t think eh cares, i want to make it clear he’s in my space and I don’t want to be bothered.

“Let the slimy bastards try.” he smirks, he’s mocking me - I know he is.   “Get out of my room.”

 “It’s not yours, nothing here is ever yours, this house isn’t yours.”

 “It’s not yours, either.” I snap.

 He bristles at this, and I’m not sure if I’ve offended him, “You’re right, my room was upstairs.” 

 I look up at him, “You’re still drunk, aren’t you?”

“I’m serious. I lived upstairs in the attic, as soon I turned twelve I started living up there, I liked it - being by myself back then. I was a right pain in the ass in the summer, though - that place was like an oven, and in the winter - god, I almost froze to death whenever we had snow on the roof. But I liked it.” He looks out at the rainy morning fondly as if he’s dreaming and I furrow my brows.

“Were you a squatter? Did you run away?” I ask, I’m curious - if he had been living in the attic, maybe he’d stopped as soon as I’d moved in. The records, the clothes - some kid who ran away and shacked up in an abandoned house where he could be free to be whatever the hell was sitting in front of me.

“A little bit, yeah.” he says, thoughtfully. “I wanted to run, sometimes I did - but I dunno, I was such a sheltered kid, I guess. The world was too big and I think I was too small and too angry to know how to deal with it. You know that shit people talk about? Inner peace and knowing how to deal with a problem? I couldn’t. But I couldn’t physically run away - so I just ran, like inside my head I guess.” he shakes his head, as if trying to sort out the words inside it.

“What did you do - when you tried to run?”

He looks up, rolling his eyes. “What? You care now?”

“I never said that, i just - I think I know what that feels like. When just want to go but you’re stuck to a place or a person, and it’s like your feet are chained to them.”

He frowns and looks back down and is silent. 

“I don’t really wanna talk about this anymore, can you play me something else?”

“Again?”

“It’s been a long time since I heard something new.”

“Why don’t you just buy new records?” I ask, he shakes his head. “Records store is too far, just anything. You can even play that orchestra stuff from last night.”

I shook my head, “You want something new. Alright.”

 This time it’s the Mountain Goats, and the first somber guitar strings of “ _Maybe Sprout Wings”_ come on as Warren leans back, looking out at the day.  “And I still don’t agree with you, Lovecraft wasn’t a hack. A racist, maybe - but a hack, no.”

He laughs, and I decide I don’t mind the sound. 

“You want me to show you something?” I look up from my book, “What?” And when I blink he’s gone, I look around the room and he’s just  _ gone _ .  “Hey, sorry!” I yell into the empty space, of course he leaves of course.

“Here!” there's a thump next to me and I look down to see one of the boxes of records. “How did you - ?” 

“Come on, your taste isn’t shit, but you’ve got to listen to some of this at least once, come on.”

“I really wanna finish this.”  I reply weakly, he scoffs. “You can read your ontological racists with tentacle fetishes later, for now - take this.”

“I’m handed an album that already smells old - like old books and the cover _Ohne Gnade_ by Chaos Z.

 “Their first EP, straight from Stuttgart, it’s only twenty minutes long and it’s got more of that toned down vibe, like - not at charged up, especially for its genre, like more natural.  But sweet shit - it’s _magical_.”

“Do you even speak German, and how’d you manage this? It looks way older than you.”

“Don’t gotta understand it. Gotta feel it and don’t worry about it, just play it.” he smiles at me and I’m over at the record player soon enough, switching off  _ Get Lonely _ for his record.

It takes a moment, and I fear I’ve broken it, but instead - it turns, slowly, slowly there’s the sound of a guitar riff repeating and I want for the beat to get fast and heavy and loud, but it never happens. Instead, there’s a man’s caterwauling joined in by more men and they all sound drunk. But the Intruder is right, it sounds like they just recorded it in their garage one afternoon after a good too many beers and the rest is history.The Intruder is mumbling German gibberish in the windowsill, but he never takes his eyes off me for all of the six minutes of the first song - he’s gauging my reaction. The beat is catchy and the refrain of _‘Stuttgart über alles! Über alles Stuttgart_!’’ repeats for a good two minutes before it devolves into passionate screaming and I don’t realize I’m smiling until the Intruder starts laughing at me. 

“What?” I ask, though I can't hide my grin. “You like it?”

“It sounds like a mess, but it’s not terrible.” He laughs, “A mess? Oh, shit - you haven’t seen a mess.” he goes into the crate again, but I stop him. “Let me listen to this - you said it’s only twenty minutes, and I’ll give you.” I go to the pile of records by my bed.

“I don’t accept gifts.”

“Think of it as an exchange, and I promise I’ll give you your Chaos Z album back, bet you had to pay a lot for anyway to have it shipped in mint condition like this.” He looks a bit bemused and shakes his head, “Mint condition?”

“Yeah, didn’t you buy it from someone?” I say, going for my copy of  _ Sound & Color  _ \- I don’t listen to it often, but it should fit his style at least somewhat - if he’s into that sort of dirty Southern blues with powerhouse female vocals.

His brows furrow, “Nah, got it new and by myself.”

 “Really? The sleeve cover says 1982.”

He shrugs, and takes the album from me. “ _ Sound & Color? _ ” 

“I kinda just assumed you would like it,my friend gave it to me to listen to and I forgot to give it back. Do you have a record player?”

He is smile is sad, “Thieving, didn’t think that was your style." he holds the albums with two shaking hands,,“Listen to that, yeah?”

I nod and I look back to the record still spinning, when I reach to turn it down and look back up, he is gone.  “You could say thank you next time.” I mumble, but there’s still a smile in my voice.

 

* * *

 Later on in the day Peter calls me over Skype, the Intruder sort of faded away when I was reading and the sound of ‘ _ If You See Light’  _ had hidden his footsteps. He said the music was too calm to be his style, and he’d ranted about how people romanticized horror so much it became like a parody of itself. “They don’t know what actual horror is.” he said, “Only what’s been told to them.”

 “So what is real horror?” I ask, my voice is snappy.

“Not that bullshit, it’s something pulled out of you after years of writhing inside you like a dead animal, it’s not given to you by screens or books - it’s personal. You write your own personal hell.”

Then he was gone, and I was left alone again.  Peter’s call came sooner than I had wanted, but I wasn’t upset. 

“You look tired.” I told him, even if it was only a little after nine at home. “Can’t look as fresh-faced as you, Kurti.” he smiles and I look away.

“How’s your Dad and Charles? Have they talked at all since that argument?” 

 Peter rolls his eyes, rubbing his hands over his face and groaning. “They’re trying to, I don’t know. Dad is stubborn as hell and Charles knows Dad won’t admit he was wrong. I’m not sure what’s going on.”

I frown, I’ve met Charles and I’ve known Erik since me and Peter met when we were eight, but their relationship has never been its steadiest. I guess I can’t talk about other people’s troubled love affairs, at least Charles and Erik are still together. 

 “Hey, Peter?” I ask when it's starting to fall into an awkward silence.  “Yeah?”

 “Are their any new songs you wanna show me, anything you can send?”  Peter paused and furrows his brows as her begins to look through his laptop. “Why?”

 “Just curious.”

“Anything in particular?”

“Please no more Crystal Castles, it gives me a headache. But if you’ve found anything like maybe, something with a little more power to it?”

“ _Power_? Really Kurt?”

“Don’t mock me, Peter. Just something like The Pretty Reckless or Tat, I know you know.”

He pauses, mulling it over. “Why the sudden interest? I’m not upset, I’m just curious.”

 When I go to answer the lights flicker and I look outside, the rain has tapered off a bit and it isn't not particularly stormy. “Everything alright?” Peter cuts into my thoughts, I nod. “Yeah, just my old house being old.”

The lights cut off again, and I distantly hear the sound of a blasting, soulful woman’s voice and I smile a little. ”Just..if you can find me any bands like that.” the lights cut again. “Let me know, it’s for a friend.”

“They’re American?” he asks with a smile, I nod. He rolls his eyes, “Of course, yeah - I’ll try, since you’re more interested in dreamy synths and haunting lyrics.”

“My synths aren’t dreamy.”

 Peter snickers before his screen freezes  I furrow my brow. I call out to him, but the sound is distorted and scrambled, the lights are still off and there isn’t even the sound of the air conditioner's roaring coming through the vents.

“Peter?” I call out. Then the connection goes dead.

_ Verdammt. _ I look around my room, waiting for the lights to come back on and when nothing happens the only sound in the whole house is the rain hitting the windows and the guitars from upstairs.

After ten minutes, nothing happens, and if I’m to open the windows the water is just gonna come inside, so I take my unfinished Lovecraft downstairs to the thankfully dry porch and sit on the swing. I can still hear the music from outside, and then after a few moments it shuts off

“Hey, again.” it’s the Intruder, there’s a cold edge in his voice.

“ _Guten Nachmittag._ ” I say back as he sits next to me on the swing and pushes it gently with his foot. ‘The power in this house is awful.”

I only nod, “Do you like it? _ Sound and Color _ ?”

He shrugs, “It’s a bit funkier than I thought it would be.”

I laugh, “Funky, really?” he rolls his eyes and looks back out on the street. I bet we both look really odd, the two of us just sitting on the porch in leather and pajamas I’ve had since I was twelve.

 “So, is it like an obsession or an homage? The whole - “ I gesture to him and he looks confused. “Everything.” when he asks what I mean I find myself a bit hard of trying to give an answer. “Everything about you seems like it’s from a bygone era.”

He leans back on the swing and we’re both silent and for a second I feel like I’ve hurt his feelings, “What makes you like the present so much?” he asks me back. “I live in it.” even if I take a minute to ponder, but the answer still sounds stupid. 

 He hums, “Think of it as the same, yeah?” I perk up at the mention of my name, “How’d you - “

“Your Mom, she’s always calling you.”

 I shudder, so he was in the house when she was there, I inch away from him and offer a shy smile. “She doesn’t like to be without me, I guess and I never got your name - “

He looks away at this, like him saying his own name is something offensive. “I..name? Uh - Warren, I guess that’s what everyone’s used to calling me.”

“Warren,” I say - and mispronounce it through my accent but if anything, he still smiles. He looks younger when he smiles.

I asked him what he meant about living in the present, and he took a moment to answer. “You like now, right? You like your music and everything that now has?”

 I nod, most of it. “Yeah.”

 “I like back then better.” he says, there’s an ease in his voice and a fondness.

“That explains the vodka.” I murmur, he smiles a little.   “Aged to perfection.”

 We sit out on the porch for a little while, and he pushes the swing, I just barely notice when he flinches whenever a car passes by and the water kicks up underneath it, splashing the sidewalks.

“Scared?” He shakes his head, “You wish.”

 Warren yelled to me later that the power was back on and asked if I’d wanted to watch a movie “Unless you wanna sit up on the porch all night and wait for your mom to come home.” I shook my head,  Mum called the house saying that there was a patient that had come in late, and she would have to stay for a few hours more. “No. Let’s watch something.” I told him, and he grinned so wide, even in the yellowish lights of the house his hair was still golden. “Come on, we can go in the attic.”

I think he noticed my change of face as I sat further in the couch and curled my little Lovecraft book further towards me. “You scared of what happens up there?” he asks, smirk playing at his lips.

 “Not scared, apprehensive.”

 “Your accent is nicer when you say long words.” and I blush, because of course he would say that. “You might murder me up there.” I snark back and he leans against the railing on the stairs, he’s goading me, I know it. “Trust me, I could’ve murdered you down here if I wanted to, plenty of places in this house to hide a body.”

“You’re not helping you case, Warren.” He blows an unruly curl from his face, “Just one movie? I promise you might like this one, you ever seen Breakfast Club?”

“Never.”

“Well shit, this should be an experience.”

I shouldn’t, I really shouldn’t follow his up the stairs and up the other flight of stairs that leads to the attic, really shouldn’t sit down next to him on the floor as he pushes old junk off an even older looking TV and rummages through a corner of the room until he finds the VHS tape. “Come on, please at least try to pretend I didn’t practically just kidnap you.” he smiles and I giggle back.

“I should scream, tell everyone that I’m trapped up here then, _ja_?” I tease him, “Scream all you want, you’d best not die on me.”   


I giggle again as he finishes fiddling with the tape, and asks me if I want to shut off the lights. “So you can creep up on me when I’m distracted, of course.” I roll my eyes and he sits besides me on the old loveseat, it's comfy and I’m practically sinking into it.

 Death Watch is probably one of the saddest movies ever, but Warren watches it and his face is resigned, cold, distant as if it bothers him slightly, but he’s trying to bring himself not to care.  It’s set in a future where Death from disease is unheard of, but yet there’s this author that’s been diagnosed with an incurable and terminal illness, and instead of treating it with solemnity and as if it was tragedy, they make a reality show out of it. Filming her every move, spying on her though cameras they’ve implanted into their eyes. She just wants to die, and do it in peace and alone.

“It’s sickening, yeah?” Warren asks, it’s after nine when the credits are rolling.

“Why wouldn’t they just let her die?” I whisper, his eyes never leave mine and he shrugs. “She wants release, she wants solace - she just it all to end.” he sighs and slouches back into the loveseat, glances out of the triangle window next to him. His eyes are hazy, like he’s searching for something in his head but can’t seem to find the proper way to string it together. 

“Warren?” I ask, he shakes his head.

“That’s all she wanted, she just wanted to die and stay dead, but they wouldn’t let her.” his voice sounds cold, like he’s resenting every word he’s saying, my brows furrow in concern.

“Warren, it’s okay - it’s over, ja? It’s just a movie, you don’t have to critique it so much.” I try to say, hoping it will pull him from his state. “I fucking love movies, you know? Almost as much as music, puts you in a fantasy and makes you feel like you’re not sitting in shit, even if you might as well be buried in it.”

I want to say something, my mind has at least three thousand words I could say, but my tongue is made of lead and i can’t say anything, not to comfort him - not to pull him out of this state, he smiles a lot - and I’ve grown attached to them. 

I want to say it’s fine. But I don’t want to lie to him.

There’s the sound of a car engine being cut off and the sound of the front door opening, and there’s someone calling my name. Warren doesn’t move, doesn’t even flinch as the sound of mum shutting the door shakes the glass just a little.

“Go to your mom, she wants you.” he mutters, my hand is so close to his shoulder, but I feel awful. I just want to speak.

“Warren -” 

“ **_Go._ ** ” his voice is made of steel. 

 I get up and go to make my way down the ladder, “Gute Nacht, Warren.” I say, but when I turn to look back at him he’s gone.

 I talk to Mum and she's stressed, usually I would slip some wine in her tea but she doesn't want me to, she says she has to stay up. So I head back upstairs and after a while I'm asleep.

 

* * *

 

  
Mum doesn’t usually attend service with me, she didn’t back home, at least. But when I get up, she’s downstairs in the kitchen and saying she’ll give me a ride if I want , just tell her where the place is.

“You don't have to if you don't want to Mum, I'm fine.”

“Don't patronize me, think of this as an apology - I haven't been around at all this week.

_ Mum, I’m fine. Please don’t think you have to spend time with me, I’m touched - but I’m alright. _

“But Mum - “

“What? You’re afraid the girls from the bookstore will see you with me?”

I have to crack a smile at that, “It’s okay.” She pities me, and I know it, but I can’t say anything.

“Good, now eat this - I think it’s edible.” Of course, Mum doesn’t usually cook. That’s what Dad was for, she just cleaned.

The oatmeal _was_ edible, if not a bit thick and very sugary - but when Mum came back downstairs dressed in black and with bloody red lips that matched the rubies in her ears and on her neck.  Gott, Dad would’ve melted.

“You look nice.” I smiled at her from the kitchen table she shrugged me off, her heels clacking against the tile, “Of course I do. But you look better.”

I laughed and looked down, a wrinkled dress shirt and pants that came down a few inches above my ankles, I looked awful.

She cursed underneath her breath, adjusting her earrings.  “Can you grab my bag from upstairs,  _ Schnuckel _ ? It’s on the bed in my room” I think she caught my blush as I hurried out, _Schnuckel_ was one of her favorite things to call me.

 I went upstairs and was promptly greeted by the feeling of an alarmingly cold body on my back as I reached for the bag. 

“Warren?” I wheezed out after he'd practically scared the air right out of me, I’d jumped backward, effectively throwing myself into his arms.

“Cute purse.” he snickered, I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to church.”

“Why?”

“The real question is: why are you on me?” he shrugged and nestled his curls further into the crook of my neck, his breath against my collarbone. “You’re really warm.”

“You’re freezing.” he only hummed a reply, “Sorry about yesterday, didn’t mean to snap at you like that.”

_ Why don’t you apologize for scaring me on sneaking into my house, or stalking me, or threatening me.  _ I sighed and patted his shoulder. I couldn’t apologize back, I’d just asked him if he was okay and it was him who’d gotten so defensive and besides, apologizing for being concerned sounds like I never cared to begin with.

“I have to go, okay? We can talk after I get back, I’ll let you listen to Eisbrecher.”

“What do they sound like?”

I smile and shrug him off, “After Church, okay?” He smiles, and it seems sad, like he can’t wait that long. “By the way, your Mom looks really nice.”

I think he senses my shock but I try to brush it off, “Thanks?”

He nods, and hands me the bag again, and like always - he’s gone before I can turn around.

_ Verdammt dieser Junge.\ _

* * *

 Service was fine, though a bit longer than I expected. I had a rosary around each wrist and Mum sat next to me, it felt odd though. I sung in Church before (Mum still has the picture of me in the choir when I was 11) but now I feel strange, out of place, even if everyone smiles at me and there’s an old lady with a purse the size of the Atlantic and a hat that has to be visible from space that tells me she loves me rosaries, and how she wishes her grandchildren would come to Church.

 She also gave me candy and Mum didn’t nod off during the homily, so I guess I can’t call the whole ordeal a total misfire.

 The sermon was nice, though, Father McCoy’s voice is kind, even if there’s a full house in the church it seems like he’s talking to everyone individually. He spoke about how in order to fully understand another’s trials and tribulations we must not judge, we must not immediately cast them out because of their social standings or their past or how they have wronged us. We must _“look at them through the eyes of a child, with kindness, caring and unabashed concern.”_ like the story of David and Nabal.

 I turn towards Mum, she doesn’t look back, or I can’t tell if she’s simply transfixed with Father McCoy’s words, or she’s thinking too much about them.

 Father McCoy comes up to me afterwards and I tell him I loved his sermon, and he thanks me, pushing up his glasses and being bashfully modest. “It’s nothing,” he says, “Some scribbles and an interpretation I probably got wrong.” I shake my head and Mum buts in before I can press him further. “Don’t think of it like that,” she says, “Your words could be inspiring, could make people think about things that bother them, makes them  _ face _ things.” he smiles at the end, Father McCoy holds her gaze.

“Thank you, Mrs. - ?”

“Miss Darkholme. Kurt told me about you.” she corrects him so quickly, like she’s almost incensed at his thinking of her as married.

I want to shrink away when Father McCoy turns back at me with a half-smile. “All good things?”

 “Of course, Father.” I try and ease away, hoping to signal to Mum that it’s best if he leave since the air in here is getting a bit too hot.  “Your rubies, they must’ve cost you a fortune.”

 “Please, no woman buys her own expensive jewelry.”   They both laugh. “Mum, should I start the car?” I call from the back. She turns towards me and tosses the keys, and they just hit me in the stomach before I catch them. I bless myself and  hurry out.  _Kurt, shut up - she’s not in there flirting with Father McCoy wearing her ex-husband’s pearls and leaving me here to ponder and scream at myself to deny what I saw._

 I start the car and the roar of the engine offers a comfort as I lean back and try not to think. I’d rather just be at home with my records and listening to Peter ramble on, or with Warren complaining about something while Eisbrecher plays in the background.

Or Dad, I could talk to Dad. 

 It’s a few minutes later where there my eyelashes I can see the Mum striding down the stairs and into the lot, her heels clack against the pavement and her curls bouncing her face is that of bliss and confidence. I know Dad would've loved to see her like this, looking like “the most alluring nightmare I’ve ever seen” that’s would’ve Dad called her.  She gets in the car next to me and I drive us home, saying nothing.

* * *

 

 Mum came home, changed and left back out again, leaving me at the house by myself.

 As soon as I heard the car speed off from the top of the stairs hear the floors creak,  I’m overwhelmed the scent of leather coming from behind me. “How was Church?”

 “Alright.” I murmur, one of my fingers is gripping the rosary - and everything is still happening in fast-forward. I’m not sure what I saw after service, I didn’t like it. I wasn’t _angry_ \- taken aback describes it better, but even that seems like a gross understatement. _Betrayal?_ No, I wasn't married to her, but there’s something that sits in my gut and I hate it and now that she’s gone it’s only slightly eased.

 “Hey, uh - did you wanna show me some songs?” his voice sounds hesitant, like even he’s unsure of what I said earlier. I sigh, leaning back against the stairs, “Sure, I’m sorry, though - I don’t have Eisbrecher on vinyl so you might have to just listen it from my laptop.”

 Warren’s eyebrow arches in confusion, “Your what?”

 “My laptop, it’s upstairs.” I lead him up, but he’s already in the room when I get there, damn him. I try to smile and scoot on the bed next to him, flipping the laptop open.

 Two emails from Peter, and a few check-ins from Dad (I still want to hear him actually _talk_ \- soon, though). “Here.” I give a mesmerized Warren my headphones and go through the library before I find Schock and hit play.

Warren’s expressions change from initial shock and feeling nervously at the bulky headphones to eyes widening as if gazing at something beautiful and he turns back to me and nods. “I like it!” he practically yells, “I do to!” I yell back.  _ Volle Kraft Voraus  _ isn’t my favorite on the album, but Warren's seems almost smitten with it, singing melodic gibberish at the chorus that I think is only his bastardized rendition of German and I can’t help but giggle as he flops back on the bed and stretches. It’s electronic but still punk enough and the vocals are still just as chilling.

 I also can’t help but eye the little divot in his stomach that’s exposed when his shirt rolls up, but my eyes are right back to the screen and I don’t say anything. He looks calm and happy, and I think that’s much better than he was yesterday. Besides, at least the rock in my gut is starting to dissolve. Peter’s emails consist of two separate bands that go under ‘powerful’:  A Perfect Circle and some American called Emily King. Peter’s odd like that, he has sixteen different interpretations for everything. Powerful beats or powerful lyrics, it doesn’t matter to him.

 In the Emily King email there’s the message: _‘i almost cried at the last song on this album. Proceed with caution’._

I send him a thank you accompanied by several hearts, while warren is still playing air drums and waiting for the guitar to drop on the bed besides me.  The mouse hovers over the Skype icon and I bite my lip, I need to - I should. I haven’t heard Dad laugh in two weeks and I’m suffering from withdrawal.

“Hey Kurt,” Warren calls over to me, one of the headphones pushed off his ears. “ _Ja_?”

“You listen to this yourself or did someone give it you?”

I smile, “Of course I got it myself, Eisbrecher was everything back in primary school, guess I haven’t grown up.”

Warren smiles, “I wish I would grow up, yeah? Wish I could get old.” he tugs at one of his curls absentmindedly. 

“I don’t.” I reply back, “Don’t wanna to get younger either, I’m already a mess.”

 “A relative mess, though. You’re like an overflowing trash can, I’m like a flaming landfill.” he says, and I laugh and punch him gently he rasps out his laughter. “Hey, there’s someone I have to talk to, do you mind? I’ll still let you listen to the music if you want.”

 He arches his brows, “Yeah, sure.” I give him my old phone, it’s not much more than a brick with some games and some music and a few books I saved for offline reading, but I still like having it around, it’s some comfort. Everything is synced up anyways, so Warren is listening to the _Schock_ from my phone and turning it over and over in his hands in disbelief. “I didn’t think Walkmans had these screens, no?” he asks and he looked bemused, of course, the EIghties thing - “Things change.” I smile at him, and he doesn’t look up.

Warren stated besides me, I lay down - It’s not that late back home, probably not even seven. Dad should still be awake, probably reading, he’d dug up all the old books from the basement and the garage, and he spent day putting them in the order in which he’d read them, and I’d helped (he’d told me that he’d read Stephen King’s Misery six times in a year and it kept getting better). 

I tried to call him once, it failed, poor signal. Damn this house. 

I call him again, it rings and rings to the point where I’m shaking, Warren puts a hand on my arm to steady me and I feel his weight shift as he moves closer.

“Y’okay?” he asks. I lie, obviously, he doesn’t catch it.

“You should take those boots off.” I tell him, my foot nudging against his, he rolls his eyes, “Why, Mom?”

“You’re inside.”

“Then you should take off your rosaries.”

“Why?”

“You’re not in Church.”

I smack his leg and he laughs, damn him and everything about him, damn him.

I watch him for a few seconds before my attention is turned back to my laptop to see Dad’s call. I answered without thinking.

“ _Guten_ \- what time is it there?” he asks, his accent is thick and he’s trying to speak English, but I doubt even WArren would be able to understand it - he’s awful.

“ _Nicht belasten selbst._ ” _Don’t strain yourself_ , I say. He shakes his head. He hasn’t aged much since we left, the stress  the sadness look like they’ve done little his face. But his eyes are watery and sunken, the skin around them looks tired. His face has always been sharp, severe, but now - he looks weary. , though I’ve always thought Mum never aged 

I think this is the first time he’s smiled in weeks, and his eyes glimmer a bit when he sees me do the same. “I give up.” he’s back to German and I feel a sense of ease again, even if I’m miles away in someone else’s room with some leather clad trespasser, everything seems to slow and become a bit clearer.

“You’ve been working at it, I see.” I smile, “Mum’s out - sorry, by the way.”

“Did you got to Church?” he stopped going with me aeons ago, but he would still ask if I went every Sunday after work, I nod. “Did you meet a girl?” I shake my head, smiling. “You wish.”

He pauses, “Is it a boy then?”

I don’t glance towards Warren it’d be to obvious. “Not at all.” That’s when I see him smile all imp-like. “You answered too quickly.” he says, “What’s he like?”

“Dad, if you're trying to steal my nonexistent harem of men and women, you’re out of luck.”

“You have my charm and my good looks, I’m surprised this hasn’t happened sooner.” 

“I have as much charm as a dumpster fire.” I hear Warren laugh behind me and I shush him. Dad asks me who I’ve turned to and I respond with a friend he sits back, as if deep in thought (he always looks deep in thought, he could be thinking about nothing and still look like he’s trying to cure cancer or solve quantum theory, he’s a mess).

 “You know, even if I would complain about your music, I miss it now.”

 I choke a little  “I left you a few records, I left some of everything for you - “

 He smiles and I can see the weariness in his eyes again, “No use leaving an old dog toys, it’s not the toys themselves that make the dog love them, it’s the people that gave them to him - for that he’s grateful. When those people are gone, the toys are just plastic and color.”

Silent and I don't want to think. He’s upset, he’s doing awfully, but he doesn't want me to see it wants me to think it’s okay. I’m the only one allowed to lie about being okay here, but I can’t prod him. He doesn’t need to answer to me.

“Have you played any of them?” he shakes his head, “I’m glad you thought of me like that, after what I’ve done to you - but i’m afraid it’ll only hurt me more.” he sighs, rubbing at his temples  I frown and i feel the sinking in my gut grow into a massive abyss that I fear would swallow me whole. I tried,  _ i tried t _ o leave Munich without taking all of myself, and the people i’ve left behind can’t just forget about me and not hurt themselves.  _ Verdammt. _

 “Dad, is everything alright with you?” my vice is weak, shaky, his head doesn’t move, but his eyes roll upwards and in the lighting of the room his skin looks red - Mum would’ve died laughing.

“Nothing is ever alright,  _ Eidechse. _ ”  _ Lizard _ , that’s what he used to call me back home, Mum only called me by my old pet names when she was feeling especially affectionate or just wanted me to do something without sounding too needy. Dad called me  _ Eidechse _ because I thought I had a tail, and I crawled pretty much everywhere until i was seven - and I liked the name for a bit, then i loathed it, and now - i can’t decide. 

 It’s a pain to remember. I don’t wanna ask about Emma and her unborn baby, it seems like I should, but i think bringing up the reason Mum left is too much for him now. He looks too tired, too worn, like right after I’m to finish this call he’s going to crawl into this coffin and leave me here.

“Dad, hey,” I call to him, he looks up again, “Dad, if you want to talk - I’m here all summer. Don’t feel like I’m completely gone.”

“But you’re not here.” he says, “I cannot see you next to me, I cannot see you sneak off to your friend’s house and act like i don’t notice. If I’m sleeping on the couch you don’t come downstairs and let me watch those Japanese cartoons with you because you just didn’t want me to be lonely downstairs. It’s like I can’t be your Father anymore.”

The breath is knocked out of me now, but I still manage to speak. “You can. You are. I’m still there in Munich, no part of me has left.”

“The house is too quiet without the two of you here, and if I could leave it, I would - but that would be like burying the two of you.”

“Dad, please. We’re still here - we can still talk -”

“That’s not enough, Kurt.” his tone is low, like how he would talk to me whenever I was in trouble (which in its rarity made it a chilling and unnerving thing to here, like the Devil whispering in your ear).

“ _Dad - “_

“I can never reconcile for my mistakes, I can’t get either of you back. I’m fifty damn years old and I get another child to raise and my one **_good_ ** son is an ocean away and it’s all because of me.”

I want to scream, I want to tell him to stop and say that’s not true. He has me, if anything, if not Mom he has me. I’m not dead, I haven’t forgotten about him. I’m shaking again, and somewhere in the distance I think I hear Warren calling me. 

Dad starts calling me too.

“Kurt - “ Dad says, I sniff. There’s a lump in my throat that shouldn’t be there and Dad looks pained. **_I’m fine_**. I’m fine, my Dad has me, I’m here. _I’m here._

“Dad, please. I’m here.”

“Kurt, Kurt, I’m sorry.” he says, god no, he pities me. He knows I can’t handle this, I’m not a child, I’m not some scared little kid. I’m a mess, but I can handle this. I know what I’m doing.

“I gotta go.” I say, before I even let him respond, i slam the laptop shut and collapse in my hands.

It’s too much, i can handle it - Dad’s burdens and mum seems to have dumped him there not knowing the Hell he’s in. I wish I’d never left, but it’s all my fault - but it isn’t because Mum would’ve taken me whether or not i liked it. But mum deserves to be happy, but Dad can’t even smile like he used to, and God I want to be somewhere. Not here or in Munich, I’d rather be out in the Atlantic where it’s endless and there’s no burdens or hurt or people. 

 “Kurt?”

“I’m fine, Warren.” he isn’t buying it. I’m shaking, the tears aren’t falling everything is just too  _ loud _ .

I lay back next to him and he wraps an arm about me, it’s cold and heavy, but it’s there, and when I curl into him his skin feels thin, like I’ll fall right through him. I wish I could.

 "I just - I want them to apply, the both of them. But it seems like all this anger, all this sadness, it’s just me.” my voice fades in and out and in some parts the English becomes German but Warren seems to get it, he’s cold and thin, but he seems to understand.

“It’s not you, you know it’s not. You can’t put everyone’s burdens on your back, you won’t have any room for your own.” 

“Everything is too much.” I say he holds me tighter and I curl up, I can’t believe it. I don’t know, everything seems to be swimming and it feels like I’m only half-there.

“Warren, it’s all - “

“You matter. Okay? You fucking matter and don’t let yourself or your parents or what’s left of their marriage make you believe you don’t. You don’t get to give up your life in order to give it to something else. You fucking **_don’t._** ” He holds me,I shudder, he shushes me when I begin to mutter to myself,  he talks to me and I am rendered silent.

 We stay like that til I stop shaking, until my heart rate slows and the room stays in one place until I imagine myself out at sea, drifting off amongst the endless, rolling waves.

After an age, he speaks again. “Do you want me to play you something?”

 I shake my head, I’ve latched onto him to the point where I’m sure if he gets up and moves I’ll fall to pieces again. I’m trying to led the waves carry everything way, the Divorce, Emma, the Baby, The yelling, everything. Warren’s nails are painted black and Warren’s heartbeat must be really quiet, because I’m pressed against his chest and I don’t hear anything or feel a pulse. Even then, there’s comfort as if there was one.

_ I’m fine _ is still a lie - just a bit less of one now.


	5. Up In Flames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> many love and kisses to my dearest @finalprince who listens to my ramblings and whom i give my heart. I’ll be taking a short break from this fic in order to finish up the next few chapters and focus on school, but please leave me some feedback in the meantime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> many love and kisses to my dearest @finalprince who listens to my ramblings and whom i give my heart. I’ll be taking a short break from this fic in order to finish up the next few chapters and focus on school, but please leave me some feedback in the meantime.
> 
> Songs used: Cretin Hop - The Ramones + MIND - Jack U

  
Warren had stayed with me the rest of the afternoon until Mum came home. I tried my best to look like I hadn’t broken down, but my hair was awful, my eyes were pink and my voice was still wavering. I knew she would notice and with a furrow brow and a biting lip she asked me that infamous: “You okay?”

“A little?”

When she asked me what had happened, I couldn’t tell her. Saying the man she hated had unintentionally made me almost would only serve to resent him even more, and resentment was something I didn’t want to add to what scraps of their relationship remained. She ran her hand over my back, reaching into her purse and pulling out a plastic bag. “Sorry it took so long to get you this, Kurti.” she smiles and unraveling the knot it it, it’s a phone.

If this is an apology, it helps a little.

“It’s already hooked up, so you don’t have to use the one from before, alright? I’ll leave you two to get acquainted. I thank her as she leaves and she waves me off, “Just don’t take any naked pictures of yourself, ja?” I blush, “Mum!” I say, hiding my face - and she only laughs.

It’s a bit of a relief, and I try to transfer all the books and music from my old phone onto the new one. It’s bigger, but it takes a minute - letting go of something from home that you held so dearly to you even if it is just a brick of glass and metal - there’s sentiment there.

“You still shaken up?” Warren asked, giving me half a heart attack, he’s just there and then gone.

“Mhm.” I hummed, not turning back to look at him until he got up, “I’ll be right back, okay?” I still didn’t look up when he vanished again with silent footsteps.

When he came back, he had one of the boxes of records and began rifling through them, tapping my knee from his spot on the floor and holding it up.

“ _Rocketship to Russia_?” I asked, the cover was worn, its gloss dulled but Warren held it nearly reverently like it was sacred text, with the four men in tight jeans and leather jackets looking back at me like I was intruding on their brick-walled territory. . “Used to love the Ramones when I was younger, introduced me to the entire genre, y’know? I think I still have that patch I got from one of their shows in Rochester.”

I only vaguely knew who the Ramones were, knowing they were famous and most importantly, dead, but I’d never listened to them. Still, if Warren seemed excited to show me, I’d listen. “You saw them live?”

“Of course I saw them live, don’t even think I was 15 yet. Someone tried to tell me some bullshit about them getting too popular and their original vibe turning to shit, but it doesn’t matter. The Ramones don’t fucking change because they get popular, the only time the Ramones change is when they die and even then, I’d show up to the funeral with a leather jacket and a bag of zombie.”

I snicker and he goes to let it spin on the record player, “Did you actually go to the funeral?” I ask, only jokingly. He turns toward me, confused. “The funeral?”

“Yeah, remember the last one died a few years ago, I think. My friend Peter told me about it, he likes them.”

Warren seemed nearly heartbroken as the first song began to play after a few seconds of fuzz. “They’re all dead?”

“I think so, yeah.” I bite my lip. “Sorry, though. I didn’t know you liked them so much.” his eyes look so sad, so tired and distraught, like he’s just been told of the loss of a very, very dear friend and he’s still in shock. “Why? They’re timeless, and they couldn’t have been that old.”

“They weren’t, but that doesn’t change anything, sorry.” he sighs, looking over the record sleeve in his hands almost hopefully, as if touching their photograph will bring them back from the grave. “Let’s play them something, yeah? A tribute, let’s do that.”

My eyes widen a little slightly as he straightens himself, “What? Warren it’s - “

“No, no - “ he gets up and runs his hands through his curls again, “If the Ramones are dead, fuck it - they’re not gone.” he turns up the record player and as the fuzz dissipates, he shakes off his leather jacket and practically tears his shirt from his body.

I can’t say he doesn’t look stunning in nothing but his leather pants and boots, his air, his eyes and everything else made it look like he was carved from marble by some Renaissance artist and when he swings his arms his back muscles move with them and my eyes linger everywhere. But then, when I ask him what he’s doing (which comes out nearly like a wheeze) he doesn’t answer, simply turns him back and holds up one finger.

He swings his hips just slightly, and when I hear the opening guitar riffs and bass lines he’s smoothing out his hair.

The voice on the record kicks in afterwards, and so does Warren’s. He turns dramatically, like this is his performance and I’m still trying to focus on his face and not his chest but _Verdammt_ , is he making it rather hard.

It took a moment for me to realize what he’s doing, though, he’s singing along - doing his best to imitate them, he’s dancing around the room and he’s looking at me like I’m not just one person but a crowd of several thousand and his hips and his claps and his voice reverberating along with the music.

He’s giving me a private performance and he’s loving all of my attention.

_“1, 2, 3, 4,_

_Cretins wanna hop some more!_

_4, 5, 6, 7,_

_All good cretins go to heaven!”_

He yells this bit and I’m only slightly worried that Mum might hear us, but Warren seems too engrossed in the sound that he doesn’t care. Anytime there’s a break between verses he’s dancing around and looking straight on at me. “Come on, Kurt. Put those paws together for me.” he says between one exaggerated hip swing and I can’t help but laugh.

“Warren, this isn’t Madison Square Garden.” I chuckle, but he doesn’t care.

_“There's no stoppin' the cretins from hoppin'_

_You gotta keep it beatin'_

_For all the hoppin' cretins_

_Cretin! Cretin!”_

He dances like the music has been injected into his bloodstream, and sings like a rockstar who gets his energy from feeding off that of the crowd’s and when I clap, he does it too, and he sings and I’m not sure at what point I let him take me by the hand and let me dance with him, but he does. I’m sure whe both look awful, but Gott, dancing with Warren should be on everyone’s bucket list. He did swing me around a bit, but i don’t think he noticed my dizziness, and i simply tried not to notice it for myself.

“I _'m gonna go for a whirl with my cretin girl_

_My feet won't stop_

_Doin' the Cretin Hop_

_Cretin! Cretin!”_

When Cretin Hop fades out Warren all but collapses on the bed, and I’m not even sure if the song was that much more than three minutes, but he’s laughing and smiling and panting as if he just finished a 90-minute set.

“Cretin Hop, god - I miss that one.” he hits pause on the record and looks over to me. “I think I still have the patch I got from one of their shows. You shoulda seen it, everyone was sweaty and the air was so thick with smoke you could hardly see the stage. But then there was music, and everything else, the people and the noise, it just felt so wa-”

“Kurt?” it’s Mum calling me from downstairs, “Yes?” I say, anything for Warren to wait and going out into the hall. “Is someone up there with you already? I thought I heard another voice?”

I lie quickly, though I still hate it. “No, was just watching something.”

“There’s someone down here to see you!” she yells and I go down the stairs, only to see Jubilee carrying two huge bags. “Kurt! Sorry I haven’t been able to speak to you, do you have a phone now?”

I nod and I smile when i see her, her hair is up in a bun and her clothes are still bright as a star - “Is Jean with you?” I ask. “Begrudgingly, but yeah.” Jubilee shrugs and Mum snickers. “What've you come by for?”

“I was bored, I had brownie ingredients and Jean has a car., so..we came over here. Unless you’re busy - “ I shook my head, “Brownie? Not sure I know.” her eyes widened and her jaw set with something i only imagined as being fierce determination. “Its an American staple food, a tribute to our Founding Fathers in the form of something sweet, baked and square.”

“I thought those were words you used to describe Colorado.” is Jean’s sardonic voice from behind her. “Did you finish Handmaid’s Tale?”

Before i can answer Jubilee ushers herself i s practically power walks to the kitchen with her bags. “No, um - been busy.”

“I thought you said you weren’t busy.”

“Well I could’ve been reading it now, then.”

“Are you saying we’re not welcome?”

 _Gott,_ this girl is trouble. “You are-” I say, almost exasperated and confusing myself, she smiles. “We would’ve been here sooner but Jubilee insisted we get German chocolate instead of regular.” he shrugs and follows Jubilee back into the kitchen and I close the door, looking to the top of the stairs, i see Warren looking like an abandoned puppy. “Come on, i haven’t seen them a few days, and I spent all afternoon with you.” I say to him, he frowns and when i blink he’s gone - and a few seconds later I hear the opening chords of _Rockaway Beach_.

Mum comes out from her room and tells me not to make a mess of her kitchen, and she’ll be doing some stuff for a work. “And for the record, Kurt, _Pleasant Dreams_ is gold compared to _Rocket to Russia_.”

Of course the music was _that_ loud.

* * *

 

Jubilee calls me back into the kitchen and the half-hour goes smoothly enough, plus it’s really amusing to see the two of them together. Jubilee insists on adding more sugar than the recipe needs and Jean foils her enthusiasm with a wry comment here or a correction there. I think this is the first time I didn’t feel the need to get involved between two people since Charles and Erik, because they just continue on in their own way and when they speak it’s like their own separate language of jabs and compliments.

When most of the batter is done and we’ve all but exhausted the sugar rations, we Jean slams the oven door whilst Jubilee sits cross-legged on the counter, eating the remaining batter out of the mixing bowl.

“Twenty-five minutes, Jean, call it.” Jean sets the timer on her phone and I ask if they would want to go hang around on the back porch while they bake and sure enough, we were outside in the late afternoon sun.

“So do you think Ororo and T’Challa are back together? She said she was going on vacation, but I can’t imagine her being gone for this long and go back to Manhattan.” Jubilee asked after accidentally dropping an egg on the floor

“They’re not,” Jean replied, rolling her eyes and Jubilee dove for the paper towels. “Probably going to settle that whole custody battle with him, but I doubt they’re getting back together once that’s over.”

I bite my lip, no - I won’t say anything.

“Sucks, though - she doesn’t get to see her Dad from all the way in Africa - that sucks.”

Jean sighs, “Of course it sucks, but look at us - our both our parents have been separated since we were ten, and we turned out mostly okay, or at least you did.”

Jubilee puts an arm on her and she shrugs it off playfully, “Just kidding, I turned out better.” Jubilee laughs and I try to smile.

“What about you, where’s your Dad if you don’t mind telling?” Jean asks, Jubilee nudges her again but I pardon her. “No, it’s fine. He’s still back in Munich, but the divorce got finalized back in April. Mum moved us out, couldn’t take it.” I lean back and Jubilee swings the three of us on the porch.

“Well my Mom and Jubilee’s Dad are really close, so it’s still like having two parents I guess?” she shrugs, “I think they switched us at birth though, honestly.” When I ask why, Jubilee starts, “My Dad could easily pass as Jean’s. He’s got that cold-better-than-you aura and everything, not that he’s mean - but they they’re practically the same person. Jean rolls her eyes, “And my Mom is your Mom, oh my god - any time Sylvia or Linda puts something on Facebook she’s sends it to me like five times, and she’s always like _‘Jean how are you and Scott?’ ‘Jean it’s Friday night and you’re studying? Come on, text Scott and ask him if he wants to hang out!_ ’ like - gah!” she rubs at her temples as if remembering simply hurts her, and I’m laughing.

“Your Mom sounds nice.” I say, “And your Father sounds like Jean.”

“And your Mom?” Jubilee asks, “She seems cool.”

“Danger given legs and blond hair, but she’s nice enough. It’s terrifying when she’s angry, though.”

 Jubilee cuts in about how Jubilee’s Dad is scarier, and Jean counteracts about how her Mom is scarier and it just ends with the three of us trying to tell stories to up each other’s claims and some of the one’s Jubilee tells may have varying degrees of authenticity, but Jean is there to back her up or correct her plot holes.

“Dad takes his fireworks really seriously, I can’t even so much as go to the distribution center with him without him having a conniption.”

“Well you did almost lose an entire hand when you here eight, I give him every reason to be cautious with you and pyrotechnics.”

“Don’t take up for him, with the burning passionate love you and Great Scott have.”

“Shut up, Mom.”

 I’m still laughing until my sides hurt, watching the two of them, and we’re still laughing when we hear a series of loud beeps coming from inside.

 It’s not Jean’s timer, it's the smoke alarm and we’re nearly tripping over each other to get through the door. Mum is hurriedly rushing around trying to open the windows. And air the place out, the kitchen is covered in a light haze of smoke.

“It’s only been fifteen minutes, what happened?” Jubilee asks, going to open some more windows as I rush to get the fans. “Don’t know, it’s like someone turned it up while it was in there, probably - the box only said 350 degrees.”

“The oven says 400.” Mum replies, coughing. Someone, it couldn’t have been her, and ovens don’t just turn up their own temperature after it’s been set.

_Warren._

I didn’t have the time nor the proper vision to upstairs and confront him but Mum ushered all of us out of the house when all the windows downstairs had opened. Luckily, there’s no fire, and we all practically evacuate the house for the front porch again, this time with Mum sitting with us as the house airs out.

Jubilee sees the most upset, “Sorry about this, Kurt..didn’t think it would turn out like this.”

I put a hand on her shoulder, “Don’t worry.” I smile, “Your intentions were good.” her smile is a little sad. “If it helps, we can just get ice cream instead.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re talking about Iceman’s. That Bobby guy is creepy.” Jubilee nearly recoils at the thought.

“He’s not creepy - he’s just - charismatic. You of all people would know about that.” Jean defends him, Jubilee frowns.

“Why’s Bobby creepy?” Mum cuts in.

“He’s just so like - he speaks in leers and he gave me and Jean nicknames when we were younger, and that was cute, but now it’s just like - “ she cringes, “I don’t like the way he looks at us.”

Jean rolls her eyes, “I want to go, if it’s fine with you, Jubilee. I don’t want you uncomfortable.” I can see Jean smirking.

“Fine.” she groans and Jean high-fives me. “I’ll pay, Ms. Kurt’s Mom, don’t worry.”

Mum smiles, “Why would I give him money? Americans are known to be generous.” she smiles and they both laugh, she kisses me on my cheek as we get up to leave. “Will you be alright?”

“The house should be cleared out soon, but I don’t think that girl is getting her cooking pan back.” I smile and pats my back,sending me off. I climb into the backseat and hold my rosary, and Jean is then flying down the road.

* * *

 

 To get to Iceman’s was a short ride on the highway to the next town over, and once we got there Jubilee only hesitantly got of out the car. Bobby was a bit creepy, his voice was about as caring as Jeans and I didn’t really like the way his eyes shifted towards mine or when he was finished paying, he would watch us as we left back for the car.

“He’s nice enough - “ I shrugged, I’d never seen so much ice cream in one place, flavors I didn’t even know existed (coconut-peanut butter and popcorn being two of them) but Jubilee had to have gotten at least twelve scoops of everything since her hands were shaking from trying to hold the cup.

“He keeps bodies in the back of the shop. Trust me.” Jubilee shuddered, practically giving up on her spoon and shoving her entire mouth on the ice cream, I giggled. “What are you, ten?” Jean said, slightly disgusted.

“Ten and a quarter, thank you.”

We sat in the lot eating and I desperately wanted to go in and ask for more because cookie dough ice cream is a delicacy and a natural right, but Jean started the engine and we were off again into the dying sunlight.

“You want me to play something?” Jubilee asked quite suddenly once we’d turned onto the highway. “I never said that.”

“Sounds like a challenge.” she had already pulled out her phone to hook it up to the Bluetooth in the car, handing me her monstrosity of ice cream to hold as she searched through it.

“You love this one.” she smiled, nudging Jean and taking her ice cream back, “I know you do.”

“It's alright.” Jean shrugged, though I could see her smiling through the mirror.

The bass was heavy, and as were the vocals.

_“You love how, you push me to the point of crazy._

_I and love when you’re in your knees and begging for me._

_You got me good with all these migraines,_

_There you go you’ve got my heart again.”_

Jubilee had begun singing at this point, and Jean was trying her hardest not to crack up laughing.

_“Say my name I wanna hear you call,_

_Hold me close I wanna feel your heart._

_I’m in a cold sweat and I want you bad._

_Now you got me all in my head like that.”_

Now was Jean, switching into the right lane who came back and I couldn’t stop grinning when she starting singing.

_“I’ma show you how, show you how, show you how, to love again.._

_I’ma show you how, show you how, show you how, to love again…”_

When the beat dropped, Jubilee was trying her hardest not to drop her ice cream from her dancing and I was trying my hardest not to choke on mine. They did this back and forth, with Jean on the make vocals and Jubilee on the girl’s and I couldn't help but dance. The highway was clear and the sun was tinted pink, my ice cream was melting and _Gott,_ the bass was hard as all hell. I joined in towards the held, my voice scratchy and off-key, but we laughed and laughed.

 I would call it contentment, but I got a headache afterwards.

 We got back home soon enough, the house having aired out and Mum’s car gone. I almost didn’t want to go, but I knew she’d worry. Jubilee seemed almost saddened to let me go back and she hugged me tight, ice cream all over her shirt. “Hey, um - come by the bookstore any time you want, we’ll still be there, okay?” she smiled, I smiled back.

“I’m not dying, Jubes.” and with that she hopped into the car, “You better not! Wait, Jean - you can’t change it, what do you have against Madeon?”

“Madeon is for children. Kavinsky’s better, much more sexy.” I heard her say from the car, and with Jean’s car was off again.

The house had aired out a lot, and most of the windows were closed again, Mum had taken the trouble to wash what remained of Jubilee’s cooking supplies and left the last of the ingredients in the big bag. I could probably head to the bookstore tomorrow and give them back to her, but there was still the confronting of Warren they I didn’t feel like doing nor was I in the mood to care. I just had a pound of frozen sugar and got a headache from some really nice bass, I wasn’t feeling it.

“Kurt! You’re back!’ where the pounding footsteps from behind me and the warm voice, of course, I never get the solace I want/need.

“What was that?!” I ask him, “Earlier, with the oven? What was that?!”

His smiles dissipates and his brows knit, “What? It was a joke.” but even he didn’t sound too sure of that excuse.

“A joke? What if we weren’t home? What if we were sleeping? Why in the hell would you turn the oven up higher? Goddamnit Warren, that _Scheisse_ isn’t funny!” I was full-on yelling now . A joke, that’s what this was to him? My Mum, me and my friends could’ve all gotten hurt and yet he was calling it a _joke_?

“Kurt, come on -you would’ve been fine, you would’ve smelled it long before it started to actually burn anything, and you’re all fine!” he went to touch my arm. “It is not fine, okay? That’s not fine. A prank isn’t a prank when you can get hurt, Warren. It’s not a prank when you’re putting the lives of other people in danger.”

“They would’ve been fine.” he growls.

“You don’t know that, you were upstairs brooding until they got here. You wouldn’t have known that.

He laughs, and it sounds horrible. “You were brooding with me, if you stayed upstairs, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“How in the hell is this my fault? You should know not to try and set my house on fire.”

“This ** _isn’t_** your fucking house! And I wouldn't have hurt you or those girls, and you should’ve known better than to to just leave me by myself.”

“This is _my_ fucking house, you’re the one who’s damn trespassing and trying to hurt the people around me, I should’ve never let you in .”

“I let you in, and she doesn’t fucking care about you, I know it - you’re a pawn to her, she’s just using using you to get back at your Dad, I heard you and those girls talking out on the porch. You know how divorces work, it’s never to save the kids and give them a better life, it’s always to get back at the other parent - she ‘s fucking using you!”

I push him, this time, knocking him off his balance, “You don’t fucking talk about her like that, _Hurensohn. Sie verdammt noch mal nicht sprechen über sie!_ ” I can feel my blood rushing everywhere and the room is spinning to the point where it's just me and Warren and he’s angry and I’m angry and all I see is the color red.

He’s charging at me like he wants to kill me, like he wants to feel my ribs crack underneath his fists. “Do it then, _tu es_!” I scream and he does, and I feel the force of the punch and then my mouth fills with blood.

 “Kurt!” I see Mum out of the corner of my vision as Warren disappears, she goes to pick me up, but everything is swimming, then I see him again, in the corner of the kitchen and I want to claw at him and choke the light out of him and those oblongs of light are there again and I wish to God to tear them from his back, because they seem to be doing nothing but mocking me.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> German translation: Hurensohn. Sie verdant notch map nicht sprechen über sie! - Son of a bitch, don’t you fucking talk about her again!
> 
> Tu es - do it!


	6. The Farrow and the Runaway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warren insists on ignoring Kurt, Kurt doesn't care.

The swelling of my lips never fully went down, neither did my resentment towards Warren. He blamed my Mum, my Mum of all people, and then me, and then my friends, but never once thought that maybe trying to set the kitchen on fire wasn’t accepted by polite society. He was too caught up in his own damn ego to realize.

 When Mum had left me alone with the pack of ice for the night, I prayed, my lip just barely ghosting over the rosary on my wrist. I thanked God we’d all been home, I prayed that Jubilee and Jean would sleep well, that Mum would stop worrying about me because she’d heard me yelling and come down to see a busted lip and not another soul in the kitchen and I could tell as she dabbed water on my lip that she was I thinking I had most likely lost my mind.

 I prayed for Dad and Peter, that maybe one of them would call so I wouldn’t have to think I was bothering them if I did it myself. My guilt would’ve eaten me alive had I not prayed for Warren, I asked god for his forgiveness, to sage his anger and give him peace and make him see through the hazy fog of rage.

 I prayed for the house, and my bleeding lip and my throbbing head only made worse by Warren’s punch.

 The next morning the swelling was replaced with mostly just pain, that made it impossible to do anything but lay in bed and try to let the voices of Little Green Cars and Jonsi serve as sedatives. 

 I didn’t say a word - but at least he hadn’t tried to kill me in my sleep. I sent a quick text to Jubilee, asking her if the bookstore was easy and getting a reply of _ ‘it never is, boss should be back in town soon though.’ _ I smiled. There was a quick shower and scarfing down two granola bars at once before heading out the door. The early afternoon was warm, and the air a bit windy, but the song that comes on last as I’m turning onto the block of the bookstore seemed so on-the-nose-I couldn't help but think of Mum.

“ _ Oh but the farrow knows, her hungry eyes, her ancient soul,  _

_ Is carried by the searing menagerie. _

_ Know what it is to grow, beneath her sky of punishing cold _

_ To slowly learn of her ancient misery _

_ To be twisted by something, a shame without a sin, _

_ Like how she twisted the bog man after she married him..” _

 The song is heavy, and the riffs are so hard and timely I find myself walking to beat, I can see Mum and Dad dancing to it. The story it tells, the words, it’s the two of them, nothing but the two of them.

_ “But in all the world, there is one lover worthy of her, _

_ with as many souls claimed as she. _

_ But for all he’s worth, he still shatters always on her earth, _

_ The cause of every tear she’d ever weep. _

_ Rushing ashore to meet her, foaming with loneliness.. _

_ White hands to fondle and beat her,  _

_ Give her his onliness.”  _

 I don’t know when I actually walked into the store, but I seemed so taken with the song itself I don’t think I noticed. I was still singing the chorus when I got in, and I only vaguely registered Jubilee waving to me.

 “Hey, Melancholia!” Jean yells and I turn, she’s perched atop the counter and reading with a cup of coffee next to her, and the air is nearly knocked out of me when Jubilee goes to hug me from the side. “Thank God you’re here.”

“Thank _Gott_ indeed.” I laugh she shakes her head, “You don’t understand. I’ve been waiting and having to play third wheel for the past half-hour.” 

“You’re not a third wheel if it’s a tricycle.” there’s a boy that emerges from the back, zipping up his fly and going to sit on top of the counter with Jean. He kisses her cheek and she pushes him away.

 It clicks then, “ _Great Scott?_ " I whisper to Jubilee.

“My thoughts exactly. I thought you weren’t coming. What happened to your lip? ” I try to answer but then Great  Scott looks at me(or rather I think he doesn't, he’s wearing shades) and away from Jean, “Who’re you?”

“Kurt, I’m a friend of Jean’s and Jubilee’s.”

“Wow, Kurt - we’re friends already?” Jean says without looking up, “What’re you reading?” I ask her.

 A cautionary tale.” she holds it up, _Brave New World_ by Aldous Huxley. “Jean thinks it will be our pleasures that destroy us.” Scott chimes him. “Or it could be our fears that destroy us like in _the Giver_ or _1984_.” Jubilee adds.

“Or it could be neither, it could just be us destroying ourselves like Lord of the Flies.” I says, and they turn to look, Jean decides that this is an acceptable answer and Scott follows her with no struggle. 

“You’re the one that moved into the House on Howard, yeah?” Great Scott asks me, “ _ Ja. _ I’ve only been there a couple weeks.”

“And you’ll only be there a couple more.” he mutters back, Jean smirks. “C’mon, he’s brave, I do remember you nearly pissing yourself when we told you to go ring the doorbell to the house a few Halloweens ago.”

“I was young, stupid.” Scott shrugs, “And that house is creepy as shit.”

“You’re still young and stupid, the only difference being you’re just taller.” Scott still kisses her, as if to make up for his youth and stupidity and judging by Jean’s smile, it helps a little.

“We’ll be in the back,” Jubilee says, tugging at my hand. “I took all the inventory for the morning, and if anyone comes in, you can deal with them, alright Jean?”

Jean waves her off, face still engrossed in the book. “Hey Kurt,” she asks me as I walk by her, “Your lip, who hit you?”

My eyes widen just a little but I try to show as little emotion as possible. “Nobody, must've been fighting in my sleep.”  _ and punched yourself in the lip? That should be two sins, one for lying, and two for telling a lie so stupid. _

Jean doesn’t press me, thankfully, as I follow Jubilee into the back, she’s got her laptop setup and an ungodly amount of snacks on the table in the center, there’s empty boxes everywhere - but Jubilee’s seemed to make it as comfortable as possible.

”Are you even allowed to do this?” I ask her with a smile, “Ororo Is very lenient, let’s just say. I was gonna have a movie day with Jean,  but since she’s intertwined as one with Scott, I guess we’re stuck together.” I try not to choke on my laughter as she hands me a bag of Gummy bears. “Must everything you eat be coated in sugar?”

“No need for bitterness in a world that has so much of it.” she smiles and I sit down in the folding chair besides her.

“So what’s really happened to your li, dude, you can tell Jean doesn’t buy it.”

“Do you?” 

“Not at all. Come on Kurt, did someone hurt you?”

I lie, “No, Jubilee. Nobody hurt me.”

She gets up and goes to the mini-fridge in the corner and pulls out a can of  Coke for my lip. “Kurt, c’mon, if you can - just tell me, I don’t wanna ask who it is.”

I shake my head, resting the cold can against my lip, “Some kid, probably drunk when I was  out last night. It's nothing.”

“Didn’t you call the cops or tell your Mom?”

I shake my head, “He’ll sober and up and forget everything,  _ frauline  _ and it's not like he hurt me badly.” I shrug, and she still looks concerned, brushing some hair from my face . “Listen, Kurt - if there’s anything wrong, you can talk to us. You don’t have to cover for anyone, okay?”

I wish I hadn’t lied to her, her eyes are soft and her lips are bitten in genuine worry. She pities me, but I can't tell her the full-truth, so the half-truth will have to do. I can't tell her that some boy snuck in and nearly tried to set my house on the fire yesterday, or that he hates me and my mom - so I just let her have her sympathy and try to look earnest.

And  _ gott _ , I’m clutching the pink rosary on my wrist, because it bothers the hell out of me. 

 “Do you wanna watch a movie?” she asks, and I nod, so she begins to go through her Netflix queue and in a few minutes we’re watching the opening credits for _ Practical Magic _ because apparently Jubilee has a thing for paranormal girls in funny situations, and I find I do too.

Somewhere in the middle of our private screening Jean comes into the back, “Jubes, have you seen that copy of  _ The Goshawk  _ for Father Hank?” 

Jubilee doesn’t look up, “ _ The Chickenhawk _ for Father Honk?”

“Jubilation, get your ass up and help find it, he asked us to put it on hold on Saturday and it must’ve gotten lost when we were cleaning up.”

 The blood drains from my face, Father Hank was _here_ , probably just beyond that door and though I had no reason to fear or resent him, there was the uneasy feeling in the pit of my gut that kept me glued to the chair even after Jubilee got up.

“Well I didn’t see it before closing ,are you sure you labeled it properly?” 

“I’m sure, it’s not at the counter - and you didn’t organize it in with the other books, did you?

Jubilee shakes her head, and I’m sure their arguing can be heard from outside now. “Kurt, you love Jesus right?” Jean asks, I nod, uncomfortable.

“Go out there while we try to straighten this out, check the shelves for any book that might be labeled for Hank McCoy - go!” and I’m afraid, I pause the movie and I’m outside of the door, with Scott and Father McCoy talking at the counter. 

“Kurt!” 

I try to duck behind a display of books but Father McCoy had already caught me, he’s dressed smart in regular clothes, and his eyes are shining behind his tortoise-shell glasses. The man always looks happy, and usually I’d be happy to see him (can I even say usually? I’ve only seen him twice, and the second time gave me the worst of impressions).

“I didn’t know you worked here, Kurt.” he beams, I’m still searching the shelves for any misplaced books, doing so just to avoid his eyes and the quicker I find the book the quicker he leaves. “I call it volunteering,  _ Vader _ .” I try to say, and he laughs. _ You and my Mum, you have no right. _

“I’m sorry for how I left on Sunday,” I say too quickly to throw him off my scent of slight resentment and indignation. “I’m usually more polite than that.”

“It’s fine, I did love my talk with your Mom however, she’s hilarious.”

“She’s like that with everyone.” the enthusiasm in my tone is gone but he keeps pressing me. “How’s Manchester been so far?”

“I’m adjusting fine.” I say, hoping he gets the message, but  _ Gott _ he won’t stop, I’m still searching through the rows and rows and holding the cross of the pink rosary between my fingers and praying to St. Monica to give me the patience and calm my nerves. 

He launches back into conversation with Scott about who I can only guess as being Scott’s brother who Scott may or may not have mixed feelings about, I just try my best to stay hidden. adn some minutes later, as wild-looking Jubilee bursts from the back of the store, holding the book with a bright green sticker labeled ‘Hank M.’.

“Sorry for the delay, it’s a jungle back there.” she says cheerily, though out for beath, Father McCoy only smiles.

“Not a problem, Jubilation, I haven’t seen you at Church lately.”

“Been working with Dad,” she says, “Fourth of July prep has been a mess, and his supplier has the sparklers on back order, so it’s a bit crazy.” he smiles. “I look forward to the show, and is Jean still here or was she buried in the avalanche of boxes and confusion?”

“ I’m here!” Jean says, swinging open the door. “Sorry I’ve missed Church, Father. But you know - God isn't for everyone.”

Father McCoy’s smile doesn’t waver, like he's used to these kids and their antics. “How was Litha?”

“Damn amazing, though I didn’t get to go to Battery Park for it, but y’know us - we throw our own parties.” she puts his book in plastic bag for him, “Blessed be.” she waves him off.

He bows to her and waves the other kids away, and I’m glad he doesn’t see me. 

“What’s Litha?” I ask Jean.

“Midsummer solstice festival.”

My brows raise, “You’re Pagan?”

“Wiccan.” she says it so coyly, but then again Jean’s only two moods are coy and livid.

“Happy belated Litha.” I say to her and she grins. Jubilee motions for me to follow her into the back of the shop again, and I follow. I successfully avoided Father McCoy and his permanent smile and vintage glasses, and found of Jean was Wiccan. My lips doesn't hurt as much anymore, but this is all fine.

* * *

 I left the bookstore late in the afternoon and after barely checking my phone for an entire day, spending it with Jubilee, Jean and Great Scott (who’s nice enough, though I’m not sure if he’s blind or just being stupid for keeping his shades on indoors). I wanted to be home when Mum got there, just so she wouldn’t have to worry and Jubilee had all but cried when I left.

 When I got home there was an entire message waiting for me with several photos, with the header _ ‘we had a conference in Munich this week. I want to talk to you as soon as you can take it, but for right now - look at this church!’  _ It was _Lambertikirche_ and he’d probably only sent it because of the the time I’d lit a few dozen prayer candles without leaving a donation in the little box before hand. I’d just wanted to pray.

Also, Dad wanted to talk to _me_.

The clock read quarter to six, Mum would be getting off soon and it would be a little before midnight back home and the message had been sent hours ago. No way he could’ve been up, but when I called him over Skype, he answered after three rings.

“You saw my photos?” he asks, in the dim lighting he’s red again, and that’s still funny to me. “It’s beautiful, did you light any candles?” He chuckles, shaking his head and leaning back in the hotel bed and running his hands over his face. “No, sorry.” he smiles. I pause, he looks so tired and even more worn than usual. “How’s Emma?” I ask, even if she’s the last person I want to think about, she's still as much a part of his life as we are, just closer to him. 

“She’s doing fine.” his answer comes a bit hushed and sharp. “She’s running off baby names and her sisters are always over asking if she’s okay.” I laugh, “I left her with them for the next few days, even if they think I’m too old for this.”

“Dad you’re only fifty. You’re not that old.”

 He shakes his head, “And does being seventeen make you not that young?” I shrug, “It makes me confused is what it does.” he laughs I miss that laugh so much.

 “How’s Raven?” I want to tell him I’m not sure I know who he’s talking about, but that would only crush him.

 “Doing good, working hard, the usual.” Dad smiles fondly, but he doesn’t press me, as if he fears if I talk any more my voice will change into Mum’s. “I’m sorry for what I said, I was frustrated - and lonely, please don’t take it too hard.”He knows I will anyways. “Dad, I understand. Just, if Emma can’t listen, I’ll listen to you, just come and talk. I’m here, I’ve always been.”

“I’m the only therapist in this house.”

 “Never thought good listening really ran in the family.” I snicker, he rolls his eyes. “We’re certainly not the talkative type, the three of us.” he smiled, glancing over at something unseen before looking back to me.“It’s getting late, and this conference is early and boring as hell.” he waves me off. “I had to cancel all of patients for this week, and there’s one young lady I’m especially worried about.” I can’t ask why, but he shrugs. “Her uncle keeps an eye on her, he’s nice but she still needs help. But yeah, I’m slowly nodding off as we speak.”

I smile, “Good luck Dad, bless you, good night.”

“Good night,  _ Eidechse _ .” he says to me, and the connection dies.

 I lean back on the bed and sigh, glad to have heard from him again. He still looks tired, his mistress is still pregnant, and he’s more or less the reason I’m here. He’s a thousand years old and three thousand miles away, and the woman he still loves is wearing his rubies and flirting with priests. But yet I’m still happy to see him.

 I email Peter the whole evening in between episodes of  _ Your Lie in April _ and by eleven I’m staring at the clock forgetting that time exists and I’ve wasted five hours. I forgot to eat, forgot to even go downstairs to see Mum when she got home and i’m not sure I remember closing the door when

I came in.

 Peter doesn’t intend on sleeping until dawn comes,  so I’m still talking to him when I’m in the process of nodding off. Headphones on, and the sound of AURORA blocking out the sounds of the old house as the stormy breeze made it groan.

_ ‘I’m rewatching the hobbit. Come over.’ _

_ ‘I’m not watching you lick the screen whenever that elf king comes on’ _

_ ‘You can’t tell me you don’t want that fantasy.’ _

_ ‘Oh i do, just not from amazonian elves that ride deer. _

_ ‘IT’S AN ELK.’ _

_ ‘Which is just an amazonian deer, get over yourself.’ _

_ ‘I let you watch your movies whenever you come over.’ _

_ ‘ ‘the fall’ is a cinematic masterpiece.’ _

There’s a rush of cold air and I slide off my headphones from one ear, Mum is downstairs on the phone and I can still hear her voice echoing, but there’s nobody in the hallway. Looking over, there is a little slip of paper, worn and wrinkled and smelling of mothballs with only the word sorry on the back of it.

 When I turn it over, there's Warren. He’s frowning at the camera, cigarette hanging partially out of his mouth and surrounded by records in a dank looking bedroom.

 His hair, even his skin looks so golden that the Warren i knw is nearly like a pale corpse in comparison. I try not to care, he should apologize to my face. But I don't see Warren lurking anywhere, I don’t hear any but _Gott_. There’s so much life in that photo and it's warm like someone's been holding onto it.

_ “And I was running far away  
_

_ Would I run off the world someday?  
_

_ Nobody knows, nobody knows _ _ ” _

I rub my hands over my face, the nervous tic Dad gave me, Warren is obviously here and whether or not he feels any regret or he just wants another person to hang out with. I don’t care. I shouldn’t care. I almost regret whispering a tiny prayer for him, on to St. Jerome for his anger, another to St. Jude for Dad and the last to St. Rita for whatever affections he has left for Mum and for me. I kiss the rosary, is a sparkly silver and the cross is black. It’s gaudy and loud as hell, but so is Peter.

_ “And I was dancing in the rain _

_ I felt alive and I can't complain  
_

_ But now take me home  
_

_ Take me home where I belong  
_

_ I can't take it anymore."  
_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who's back, back again. so sorry for the week-long hiatus but i hope this was worth the wait! thank you, thank you thank you and enjoy!
> 
> Songs used:
> 
> Run - Hozier
> 
> Runaway - AURORA


	7. The Trail Backwards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things start turning up in the house, and Kurt begins to worry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is short and i'm sorry! more to come i promise!!
> 
> Songs used: Planet Caravan - Black Sabbath

This house is old, and I understand that, there’s other people that ‘live’ in it besides me and my Mum, but I’ve seen things over the past week and now I’m in a state of frizzly nervousness and distant fear.

Warren hasn’t turned up, at least I haven’t seen him. I’ve been able to hear his feet from upstairs and definitely his music which only seems to get louder as the days go by. I try covering up the fiftieth-playing of “The Four Horsemen” with literally anything else, not that I hate the song, it’s that Warren is choosing to be petty and stay up there and stomp around and scream like he forgets what time is or who’s feelings he’s hurt.

Doesn’t matter, I’m trying to get over it.

 Also, the trinkets that are getting left around the house. I picked up little patches at first, old and smelling of mothballs, I tried returning the first three to Warren in the attic, but the door that led up tit remained stuck, so I left them in my room and he still hasn’t come back to get them. ‘The punk’s not dead’ one and the “Seek and Destroy” ones were obviously handmade and crafted with such care, I doubted Warren had made them himself. But still, I kept onto them - they were too nice to get thrown out.

 He kept going, never speaking to me, just leaving his stuff around the house like a little kid. Mum had called me downstairs the next day, angry.

“Are these yours?” he asked, pointing to the couch, where six cigarette cartons sat lined up neatly. My eyes went wide, not confused and upset that Warren had tried to frame me for nothing. “No, Mum. I swear, they’re not mine - I wouldn’t - “

 “So this is how you wanna kill yourself, yeah? Those girls finally got you into this?” she keeps going, not listening to me, I put my hands up in defense. “Mum I would never - I’ve never seen those before. I’m serious!”

She rolled her eyes and went to pick them up, but recoiled and shrieked once her hand touched one of them. Her eyes shot towards me and i swear this was how I was going to die. “Throw them out, all of them. Throw them **_out._** ” I couldn’t bargain with her, couldn’t do anything to convince her that I wasn’t actually smoking and that there was simply an unapologetic  _ Arsch  _ living with us that refused to be mature. She watched as I picked them up, rubbing over her hand and sucking in deep breaths. 

When I’d gathered them all up, they were surprisingly light. Like there was nothing in them. 

I checked behind me, Mum had gone back to cleaning, and wasn’t looking, but when I opened one of the cartons, I wasn’t met with cigarettes, but instead folded up paper with scribbled song lyrics. 

_ “While down below the trees, bathed in cool breeze _

_ silver starlight breaks down the night _

_ And so we pass on by the crimson eye of great god Mars _

_ as we travel the universe.  “ _

It’s Black Sabbath. I looked it up. Of course it’s Black Sabbath, and the song itself is so calm and ambient that I’m having trouble believing that it’s Warren - the one’s who’s guitars are big and bold and whose vocals are guttural and wrenching. I try to give the cigarette boxes full of lyrics back to him, but he won’t show up and the attic door still won’t open. So I keep them with me in my room. 

 Mum is wary, she’s checking on me more, asking more questions whenever I leave the house and I almost hate Warren. Because she’s worrying and he knows this - and he knows how much I hate that. He  _ knows  _ and I hate it.

 More trinkets and things keep turning up, and I discover the first of the shattered records three days in. It’s been split into seven pieces, but they’re all held together by duct tape. On the worn paper in the center there is a note: _‘dad smashed this when I was thirteen, it doesn’t play. Sorry.’_

 It can’t play and the label is worn and hardly legible, there’s no sleeve to identify it - it’s just there. I wonder if Warren remembers it, what songs where there, why would his Dad smash his own son’s record? I don’t want to touch it, lest it fall apart in my hands, but I take it up to my room anyways, and lean it against the wall on the night table next to all of the other stuff Warren keeps leaving.

There’s a few more smashed records, four to be exact, which brings the grand total of items to be thirteen. It stops for two days, and even I’m a little disappointed with the early conclusion of such a  scavenger hunt.  Mum doesn’t question the pile, and I try to spend some more time at the bookstore with Jean and Jubilee when I can.

Number fourteen comes when I’m in the middle of praying. 

There’s a picture of a woman next to me with curly blond hair and dressed in bright pink, several bracelets and necklaces and some of the heaviest earrings I’ve ever seen, her makeup is caked on but she’s grinning wide at the camera and sitting in between her legs is a miserable-looking toddler with her exact same blond curls. He’s not looking at the camera, he’s looking at her as if he’s upset at the fact she’s smiling. It’s old and scratched up, but the face I can make out - it’s smaller and chubbier but the frown, the curls and those furrow brows, it’s unnervingly familiar.

 As to why Warren left me this baby picture, i don’t know, but I kept it on my dresser next to the green rosary, the woman looks so happy and the boy looks so upset and I’m thinking if he had smiled they would’ve looked even more similar. But this woman, if she is Warren’s mother I haven’t seen her and she’s never come by to collect her son. I try not to think of the possibilities of where she is, if she still _ is  _ at all. 

 I call to Warren, quietly, this time. He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t say anything. Screw apologies, I just want to know.

 The trail didn’t end and fifteen and sixteen come together: two postcards, both from London. There’s a picture clipped to the first one of a girl with wild-looking black hair and dark makeup, her clothes are stubs and leather and fishnets and she’s blowing smoke at the camera.

 _“I hope mine matches up to yours, life isn’t a photoshoot’_ it says on the back, the message on the postcard is short, and it’s written in elegant handwriting.

_ “We just got off for Christmas holiday so I’m not sure when this’ll get to you, but I’m hoping you make it through the season. I wish you could come to to London, the shows here are so good and there’s plenty of pretty boys for you to shag and plenty of friends that’ll keep it secret. Then again, with your brash and bravado i’m sure you wouldn’t have any trouble starting up your own band if you wanted to. Please tell me you’ll see me come summer, i wanna see you so bloody much i’m trembling. Get across the pond soon, and merry christmas xoxo’- _

__  - Betsy B _ _

_ P.s. your hair would look good in platinum blond. _

 The date on it is December 21st, 1982. I set down the postcard with shaking hands, Betsy B. ? The second one is awfully crumbled but once I manage to flatten it out I read it. The writing isn’t as pretty, it seems nearly frantic - there’s a photo attached again, Betsy B. in a bikini and a cigarette _‘Cannes is beautiful, but I already miss home.’_ . The date is August 2nd, 1983.

_ “Hey, I was wondering if you were alright, I haven’t heard from you and summer is nearly over, if you’re planning to surprise me do it quickly! Hope you finished school alright, you still need to bloody educate yourself, bird boy. The Angelic Upstairs is having a show on the 31st and I hope you can make it over to see it. Bring me some records if you can (Dead Kennedys would be nice, though I know you hate them). Come to London before summer’s over or I will drag you across the ocean myself. _

_ -A bit worried but still alright,  _

_ Betsy B.” _

No, no, no it doesn’t make sense. She wouldn’t have been talking to Warren, maybe the letters were addressed to his Father, perhaps she was his mistress? But Betsy B. seems young and around Warren’s age, and judging by her fashion and music choice, they’re obviously one in the same. But the dates, the dates _ have  _ to be a joke. It doesn’t matter that the photo is worn and the postcards are soft and thin - it’s not true. It’s not real.

Number seventeen is a ticket stub - an admit one to some underground venue called the Hellfire Club to see Iron Maiden. The date on it reads May 14th, 1983 at 7:30 pm. It’s fake, I check it. The Hellfire Club _ was  _ real, but ironically burnt down in ‘94 and was never rebuilt. No injuries, no fatalities, it just burned. 

 Warren has to be lying to me, he had to have gotten this from somewhere - I want to be angry, but I call out to him and my voice sounds so unsure. He doesn’t answer. He leaves me alone for a few more days and I barely sleep.

 Jubilee invites me to the Independence Day parade and I go, I need to take my mind off things. I go and I eat enough to feed ten of me and we drive back to Jubilee’s house and sit on the foot to watch the fireworks, Scott’s dancing like an idiot to the distant music and Jubilee’s counting them, making wishes on every last falling sparkler. The day goes on and in cool night breeze I nearly find solace _ nearly clear my head. But even when I’m stuffed full of funnel cake and there’s Rihanna playing in tune with the pyrotechnics - I can’t forget. I see Mum and Father McCoy together , it seems like hes’ dropping her off back home - I don’t forget. I worry and worry and  _ worry _ . I talk to Peter later on that night and worry but I don’t tell him, he’s no good to me worrying three thousand miles away.

 I pray on it, ask St. Dymphna to help me ease my worry, but she doesn’t hear me, she doesn’t listen. If anything, she tells Warren to worry me more.

The house is quiet, it’s late - Mum went to sleep hours ago because she has work in the morning. I can’t sleep.

 I hear something, a quiet shuffling, a soft thud and then a loud clattering in the bathroom. I don’t jump up, I’ve tried not to - if I’m too jumpy and nervous people will notice. I don’t need them to notice, not even Mum. There’s a hissed curse and the bathroom door creaks open and there the sound of something rolling across the hardwood floor.

 My legs carry me to it. I don’t want them to, but I pick it up.

The bottle is empty, save for a few little pills at the bottom. I shake, I tremble and the door opens towards me.

When I go in Warren is sitting on the edge of the tub, and he has his record player in his hands, and he’s wearing the saddest of smiles. The studs of his leather jacket are shimmering in the moonlight and in it’s pale shine he looks so deathly pale, like a ghost.

I don’t want to say that, I’m afraid that I might be right. 

“You found number eighteen, yeah?” he says, gesturing to the bottle in my hands. I go to open my mouth, ask any of the billion questions I have, but he shushes me, one fingers to his lips and I am rendered silent. 

“Bring everything I gave you and let’s go out the back door and talk, we haven’t been able to do that for a while.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	8. we don't change (we just get older)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Revelations are made and nothing has changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the large gap between updates, but school is a mess and so am I, besides. Given the events of the past week I felt a comforting chapter to be only fitting. Be safe, darlings.
> 
> ((Songs used: Leather & Lace - Stevie Nicks + Don Henley  
>  Angel Owl - Little Green Cars   
>  Je Vole - Louane   
>  Within - Daft Punk))

 I had gathered up everything he’d given to me, the records, the cigarette boxes, the patches and photos and tickets and postcards and the bottle of vodka held between my teeth and we sat on the steps on the back porch. It was getting close to five in the morning and the deep blue of the night had been replaced with cerulean and still shining stars, the street lights were still on and the crickets still called out to us in the yard.

 I couldn’t be angry, I could only be confused and possibly a little bit scared as I sat besides Warren. It had been a week of questions, of worried looks from Mum that I tried not to notice. I just wanted to know - the dates on the postcards and on the ticket stub, it couldn’t be true. It couldn’t have all been true. He puts the record on and gives a sad smile, “This was one of my Mom’s, she loved it.”

 There's an opening guitar and twinkling piano and a rough woman’s voice is heard:

  _“Is love so fragile, and the heart so hollow?_

_ It shatters with words, impossible to follow.” _

 He looks back at me once the record starts to spin, “Here, give me the stuff.” I slide it over to him and it sits in the gap in between us. He looks over the stuff fondly - and his hands just barely gloss over every album cover and cigarette box, his soft smile never wavers. “I should be in my forties or fifties by now, I think.” he says, chuckling as he takes one of the cigarette boxes and opens it, the crumpled up paper - “I had a ton of these way back.” he hands it to me and it’s warm in my hands.

 Warren looks over everything, takes everything in his hands so carefully, and when he comes across the baby picture he frowns. I bite my lip and it throbs a little.

“Is she - ?”

“When I was twelve, yeah. Huge tumor.” he shrugs and his fingers press gently against the woman’s smiling face. “I don’t get it, why she got to go on, she got to really _die_ and I got stuck here with him.” he hisses and spits the last word out like it’s poison on his tongue. Warren looks over at the four records next to me, still cracked and taped over. “He did that to them, too. Guess he got sick of hearing the Circle Jerks and Machine Gun Etiquette - I guess it was better, I still had a lot of records, and at least he wasn’t beating me when he broke them.” he shrugs, and the stuff he’s saying - it  so unnerving and his casualness, like it’s just happened, like its normal. I want to be angry, _mein Gott_ I want to be so angry.

But I’m less confused, at least neither of my parents are dead or abusive.

_  “You're saying I'm fragile I try not to be _

_ I search only for something I can't see.” _

“Warren, did you run away from him?”

“I wanted to, I told Betsy I would, but she told be she wanted me to go to school, she wanted me to be something instead of just feeding off underground shows and vodka.” he laughs. “Warren - “ he cuts me off with another finger. He’s being a deliberate enigma, slowly unraveling everything piece by piece. 

 He takes one of the postcards, the first one - where Betsy B. is holding a cigarette in her leather and studs. “Was she your girlfriend?” I ask, it comes out sounding dumb but Warren isn’t upset, he only shakes his head. 

“ _ I have my own life and I am stronger than you know. _ ”

“She was my pen pal, we wrote each other back and forth for a few years - she always wanted me to go to London with her, the punk scene there was rad as shit. But I never went.” he shrugged, he glances over at the second one, the one with the bikini and the frantic writing.

“  _ But I carry this feeling, when you walked into my house _

_ That you won't be walking out the door. _ ”

“I didn’t write to her anymore after I died. I stopped writing altogether, I was so confused - so angry. I didn’t understand why - of all the things it was an _ accident _ .” he nudges his head over at the vodka bottle and his voice is steadily getting angrier. “I did it all the time, take pills and drink - it just numbed everything up a bit, made everything clearer for a little while. And then I would just fall asleep.” he pauses.

_ “Still I carry this feeling when you walked into my house _

_ That you won't be walking out the door.” _

 “I went to that concert that night, took the train all the way back from Buffalo - and then I came home to do the same.” I shake my head, trying to lay a hand on him, he’s still cold, he’s always cold,  _ Gott _ why is he so  _ cold _ ?

“I tried to cough them up that time, I knew I took too many, but it wasn’t enough.” 

He Died. He died in that bathroom after May 14th. He died. 

A ghost, of course it was. Warren’s cold skin, his disappearing, everything was so out of date - i had lied to myself this whole time, my hands were shaking my eyes wide and my mouth open.

I see the early morning, I hear the crickets, but I feel like I’m only floating in time - and the music and my hand on his (when did it get there? I don’t remember putting it there) is the only thing keeping me tethered to this spot. Everything is just a mess, a blur of sound and colors and I feel so  _ numb _ .

He pulls me close to him, and his cold encompasses me, I don't fight it. My breath is coming into hard, this whole time I’d been talking to  “Why didn’t you tell me? This whole time?” my voice is a gasp, a whisper and barely there, but Warren sighs and it feels like a winter breeze.

“Because you’re warm.” he says, simple and quiet. 

I look up, confused and he smiles. “Everything about you, you’re alive and you’re warmth. I forgot that, I think. That feeling of having a heart and being warm and being able to smile and to leave this fucking house because you can and you’re so warm and alive and you're still breathing and able to exist as you - to be so warm and without this fucking hollow and cold feeling inside. I hate it when you leave, everything just gets cold again.”

“  _ Lovers forever, face to face _

_ My city, your mountains, stay with me stay _ ”

He holds me tight and I don’t hear anything, no heartbeat to beat in time with the music or counteract the racing of my own. Warren hums and looks out at the morning. “I’m sorry, Warren, when i yelled at you - “

He shakes his head, “I don’t understand it, it’s been so long - I’m not even sure if Betsy is still alive, I shouldn’t have pissed you off - you didn’t know and your lip, I’m sorry about that too.”

I curl tighter into him and shiver, “Warren no, this isn’t your fault.” 

“All of it is. I killed myself, my dad beat me because I was the only thing he had left of my mom and fucking hated me for it, all the pills were my fault - all of that anger. It’s all on me”

“I _need you to love me, I need you today_

_ Give to me your leather, take from me my lace" _

 My voice is shaky and there’s tears in my eyes, because he knows I can’t take this, people blaming themselves. I answer him back, the only way I can: “You fucking matter.” I say in his gruff voice, “You may be nothing but a confused, angry apparition, but you’re not gone, you still matter - and damn it Warren, you should’ve told _me_ , should’ve said something.”

“You wouldn’t have understood, you would've run away.”

The tears are flowing free now, but I smile, Warren eyes are glossy and rimmed with pink, and they are the deepest shade of blue and in the early morning his curls are golden and the light on his back, I just barely see it and it’s beautiful. 

“I can’t run, Warren. I can’t go back home - I can’t leave.”

“Yes you can.” he smiles, “Don’t say that.”

“Warren.” I hold his hand and squeeze, “I’m here. I always here.”

I see him smile and a choked sob comes out, “Shh,” I cooed to him and he leans into me, crushing my ribs.

 “Warren, I’m here. I’m right here.” he shakes harder. The song ends and I stop the record, the sky’s turning pink and I’m not sure how long we’ve been out here.

 “Sing me something.” he says, his voice full of tears. “Anything, so I know you’re here.”

 I sigh and smile, I can’t think of much, but I try.

_ “The crystal wings, they cut like blades _

_ Knock down the strong, scaring the brave _

_ One muddy sword, one angel owl _

_ We won that war, we're safe for now..” _

 His sobs slow down and I’m running my fingers through the curls, this lonely, dead boy in my arms and he’s so cold and all he’s doing is crying.

  _“But only at dawn does my angel sing_

_  Only at dawn does my angel sing..” _

* * *

 

 By the time I hear Mum’s car pull out from the front of the house, I nudge Warren and he barely stirs. “Come on,” I say, though softly. The sky is already getting lighter, but it’s still gray and stormy.

“Rain doesn’t bother me.” I know it doesn’t but I can’t sit here, I’ve been just sitting here and thinking and thinking and thinking and now it’s only making me sadder and more tired. Warren is literally lying dead in my arms, but he looks almost serene now - like the weight has been lifted off him.

“Warren, please. Let’s get up.” he looks up to me then, “Can we stay in the attic?” he asked, I arch an eyebrow, “We can watch a movie, maybe?” he smiled a little, and I notice it - the smile of his face is that of the same woman in the picture and he holds the photo between two of his fingers. 

“Don’t wanna get up though,” he says, twirling the photo over in his hands, “Wanna stay right here in the rain.” 

I have to smile at him, because _Gott_ , he’s still the same - dead or not, Warren is stillWarren. 

“I guess you haven’t changed much since then.” I mused, he chuckles. “Dead people don’t change, Kurt - “ he says, “We just rot.” he grasps his hand in mind, squeezing and it’s cold, it’s freezing and I should pull away but the way he grabs at it like it’s the only thing keeping him from altogether fading away.

 “Let’s go then, alright?” he rubs his thumb over the veins on the back of my hand, “Since you’re so afraid of rain.” I roll my eyes, “i don’t have a record player older than my mom, the last thing you want is for it to get wet.” he laughs and gets off my lap, and we go to gather up everything.

 Warren doesn’t disappear on me now, once I lock the back door he waits and we go up to the attic together. It’s still warm up here, warmer than the rest of the house - and I sit on the big faded loveseat while he sifts through the numerous boxes and clutter looking for a movie. “Thanks - thanks for, y’know coming and shit - for listening. I like it.”

 I only hum, laying down and twirling one of the empty cigarette cartons, and trying to keep my eyes open. They follow WArren around the room, and he looks almost real, almost there - the light doesn’t go through him, the only thing it does it catch on his hair and make it turn gold.

 And he’s gold and he’s dead and he’s still cursing himself that the old TV won’t play the tape, and he’s apologizing to me and I’m only half-awake to respond. When it finally does work, he sits next to me again, and pulls me close.

 “Do you mind? You’re like an oven, really.”

 I smile, and even if he’s ice cold - I still manage to fall asleep before the first five minutes of the movie are through.

 

* * *

 I don’t go to the bookstore at all that day, but I’m texting Jubilee for the better half of it. She’s telling me her boss is coming back from Nigeria tomorrow and they’re trying to enjoy the day. She tells me Ororo isn’t mean or anything, quite the opposite, but still she enjoys the time she gets along with Jean.   Warren’s tucked underneath my arm and I’m watching _Ouran Highschool Host Club_ with him because he thinks it’s funny and he likes the theme song - even if he doesn’t really understand anything that’s going on.

_ ‘Jean and scott have a date tonight. Really snazzy stuff. ’ _

_ ‘Sounds fun.’ _

_ ‘Do you wanna come over?’  _

 I don’t feel like moving at all. The outside world is wet and gray and we’ve turned off all the lights in the house, so that the only light that comes in is bleak. I would expect Warren to appear at least somewhat transparent, somewhat not there. BUt he’s no, he’s cold but he whole - at peace. I’ve got him tucked underneath my arm and I’m watching Ouran Highschool Host Club with him because he thinks it’s funny and he likes the theme song - even if he doesn’t really understand anything that’s going on. Frankly, I don’t feel like leaving him.

_‘I’m not sure.’_ is the tentative reply, followed by _‘i would have to ask my mom’._

 _‘Not now - come on, maybe later when she gets home, i’ll text you my address.’_ well now she’s telling me to come over, she’s sending me her address.

 “Warren?” I mumbled, his eyes take a moment to shift upwards. “I still can’t tell the Twins apart.” he rolls his eyes, “What’s up?”   


 I don’t wanna leave, but I somehow feel like I’m expected to. I don’t say anything to him and shake my head, turning back to my phone where Jubilee’s already texted me her address.  


 “My Dad should be home, so pack a bulletproof vest in case his temper flares up.” I smile and place the phone down, running my hands through Warren's hair and I just barely feel him push back into my hands.

 “It took me a while too.” his brow arches and he turns back to me. “Took a while for what?” he asks, “The Twins, I could never tell them apart until my other friend showed me.”

Warren snorts and nestles his head underneath my chin and the rain wipes away the outside. 

* * *

 

 I stay with him all day, and there’s music and there’s jokes and old movies and new ones. We moved from the attic to my room, and then into the living room. I wear his jackets and hold him and he loves it, I can tell.

 “It’s like everything has color, like everything is hotter.” he says, caught somewhere between a Louane song, the sun is already going down - and I dread the fact that he should disappear by the time Mum gets here.

“I thought you Germans weren’t scared of ghosts, or anything for that matter.” he smirks.

 “You mistake us for Russians, the only thing we fear are fascists and optimism.”

 “You’re awful optimistic, than - for a German, I guess.”

I shake off the comment, “When you’re surrounded by pessimism, you have to at least try.”  he laughs at this, he’s been laughing all day. 

The song playing is French and Warren at least tries to sing along. He rolls his ‘r’s at the wrong places and his accent sounds more Polish than Parisian, nonetheless he tries.

_ “Ne pas se retourner _

_ S'éloigner un peu plus _

_ Il y a à Gard une autre gare _

_ Et enfin l'Atlantique _

_ Mes chers parents je pars _

_ Je vous aime mais je pars _

_ Vous n'aurez plus d'enfants _

_ Ce soir _

_ Je ne m'enfuis pas je vole” _

He’s trying to choke out the chorus when there’s the clicking of the storm door lock, and then its’ giving way to the front door. “ _Warren_ \- !” but by the time I get the name out, Mum is standing there and Got her eyes go from shocked to fiery. “Mum, please - we were just -”

 “ _Wer ist das?_ ” she’s shocked, she can’t speak English and be shocked, it's’ impossible. I’m waiting for a string of German curses and anger, but Warren only looks at her wide-eyed and frozen.

_“Wer ist das?”_ she asks again, “Warren, _er ist ein Freund._ ” I say before I can think.

“ _Freund?_ ” she spits, “You let him in?” I nod, i don’t want to lie, but Warren's eyes are pleading and he’s knows he’s made a mistake, the best I can do is helping get out of it. I say a short prayer in my heart and look to her. 

 She tries to go towards him, and then I see it - something changes, and he turns on his heels towards the stairs and bolts up them, heavy boots hitting the wood with groans and thuds and when she goes to chase after him, dropping her bags and cursing at him. But he runs, he runs and I’m frozen to my seat, I hear the slam of the attic door as it opens and the ladder falls out and Mum yells for me to call the police but I can't _ I can’t just doesn’t understand , she doesn’t know and telling her would be nauseating. _Mum, I’m friends with someone I didn’t know was dead until this morning. That’s right, he’s dead. He’s so nice, though - besides the being dead part._

 When she comes back downstairs, she looks frazzled and defeated, when I ask her what happened, she stalks towards me. No, no - I wanted to tell Warren to disappear, but I was so caught up - she can’t be mad at me.

 “That’s your friend, yeah?” she snaps, “You just let people in this house, not tell me - how long have you known him, which one of those girls introduced you to him?”

 “Where is he?” is the only questions I ask, “Did you see him when you went into the attic?”

“ _ Is that it, Kurt _ ?” she forgotten her English now, lapsing back into German. “You could’ve gotten hurt - I don’t know the people you’re bringing in here, who you’re talking to when I’m not around. What you’re doing behind my back and I don’t have a clue. I don’t like this you, Kurt - I don’t know what the Americans have done to you, but you better change - you better change before - “

“Nobody _changed_ me, I wouldn’t have changed had we not left. I wouldn’t have found my friends - found Warren - had we not left. I still talk to my Dad even if you refuse to. I haven’t forgotten about Germany, I haven’t forgotten about my home. In fact, the only thing that’s changed, is my old house didn’t have an attic.” I don’t say our old house, she doesn’t want to remember it, want’s to wipe it clean from the recesses of her mine, as far as I know, it was me and Dad’s house, she still doesn’t want it. 

She silent, but she is seething - and I pray for my salvation, pray that if this is how I die than I will repent and my body will still be identifiable enough for an open-casket funeral.

“You’ve changed, I know it.” her voice is quieter now, and she slams my laptop shut. “In Germany you actually listened to me, you actually had sense.”

 She picks up my laptop, and then takes my phone and she’s gone upstairs with them. I don’t want them back, let her keep them. Let her keep everything Dad’s jewelry and her love for him, the happiness and home - take it and burn it all. There’s nothing she can do. I haven’t changed.

 I’m in my room before she can come out and I crumble my hands into my face. I never told Jubilee I was coming over and I still feel infinitely awful about that as well - but I can’t. I can’t.

_ Of course, **Mrs. Wagner** , I’m the one’s that’s changed. _

* * *

 

 When Warren comes in, it’s been a couple hours. There’s Daft Punk playing gently on the record player and I’m rereading  _ Lodore  _ by Mary Shelley - it feels familiar. So does he.

“ _There are so many things that I don't understand_

_ There's a world within me that I cannot explain _

_ Many rooms to explore, but the doors look the same _

_ I am lost, I can't even remember my name. ” _

“Sorry you got yelled at.” he whispers, inching closer to me on the bed. “I should’ve left when I could.”

 “I should’ve warned you.” I wave him off, not looking up. “I love my Mum, she’s just - she’s just her. Fiercely independent and selectively empathetic.” he huffs a laugh and we settle into our usual position, with him curled up against me and stealing my warmth. I don’t mind.

  “What band is this?”

“They’re French.” he nods and understands.  “We’re still going to keep talking, right?” he asks.

“Of course.” I reply back, “Keep your voice down.”

“I could break out Metallica and scream if you want.”

I giggle, “No screaming,  _ Geisterhaft.” _

_ “I've been, for sometime, looking for someone _

_ I need to know now _

_ Please tell me who I am” _

 He holds me, this time, our cheeks pressed together, he doesn’t breathe, he’s still and silent and the music around us settles the room into closeness and robotic voices singing over a swaying piano. There is the right amount of quiet and noise, and no, **_nothing_** has changed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Were ist das? - who is this?  
> Warren, er ist ein Freund - Warren, he's my friend.   
> Geisterhaft - ghostie


End file.
